Hellenic Police announced on Thursday morning that they have broken up a criminal group that is accused of smuggling large quantities of cocaine using sailboats in different parts of the world. The investigation was completed in cooperation with the Ecuadorian police force and the American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
According to the Hellenic Police’s announcement, the smuggling group was based was in Ecuador, with people living in Greece acting as accomplices.
The expected profits from the amount of cocaine that the authorities managed to locate and confiscate was estimated at €11 million ($12.5 million).
Two Greek businessmen aged 63 and 42, as well as a 41-year old Albanian national, have already been arrested in Greece, while eight individuals were arrested in Ecuador. The three men arrested in Greece will be transferred to the district attorney of Athens.
They were all suspected of being operatives in smuggling the cocaine via sea routes from Ecuador to Greece and other parts of the world.
”It was a difficult operation that had a major impact on international drug trafficking rings. This success is very important because it shows that the cooperation of different countries can bring great results to the ongoing struggle for the dismantling of international drug dealing rings which is the plague of modern times,” Costas Panagiotopoulos, head of the drug enforcement agency of Attica Security Sub-Directorate, said in a statement to the state-run news service A.M.N.A.
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