Story By: Juan Fenandez Mayes,  Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency:  Newsflash

This is the moment authorities dismantle a violent international criminal group thought to have sold 15 tonnes of drugs to the United Kingdom and other European countries in three years.

The raids were carried out by the Spanish National Police and the Krakow Investigations Central Office in coordination with EUROPOL according to a police report from yesterday (Sunday).

The report says authorities arrested 81 people suspected of being members of a Polish criminal group “dedicated to drug trafficking, gun trafficking, stealing cars, violent crimes, contraband sanitary materials and money laundering”.

The video shows the chaotic moments Spanish and Polish authorities break into different residences and command people to get on the ground.

Police are seen searching the different homes finding different illegal objects ranging from drugs to contraband materials such as what appear to be medications, face masks and swabs for PCR tests.

The video ends showing a man placed in a patrol car and then escorted into custody.

Police seized “almost a tonne of marijuana, 50 kg (110 lbs) of cocaine, six firearms and several illegal weapons” and “blocked more than EUR 3.5 million (GBP 3.19 million) in bank accounts and properties”.

Police also took three stolen vehicles and found business and bank documentation as well as 13 encrypted phones which were “to be distributed among the organisation’s members”.

The report says investigations started in July 2018 in international cooperation between “the Spanish National Police and Polish and British police” under the coordination of Europol.

They “managed to identify a criminal organization of Polish origin whose leaders were” in the Spanish city of Alicante on the popular tourist resort of Costa Blanca in the autonomous community of Valencia.

The group is thought to have sold “about 15 tonnes (33,069 lbs) of drugs from Spain to Poland, the United Kingdom and other European Union countries” between the years of 2016 and 2019.

The group also engaged in “stealing, extorting and facing rival groups” with the aim of “controlling the drug trafficking business”.

In all, 17 homes were raided across Spain and Poland, however, no further information was provided as to the cities they were in.

It is unclear what the charges are on all 81 suspects or if authorities plan on deporting them.

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