New blow to the waterline of drug trafficking networks operating in the

Strait of Gibraltar and the Costa del Sol.

A hundred Civil Guard agents have carried out an operation in the Malaga municipalities of Estepona and Casares and Alicante to bring out the money laundering network supposedly woven by the clan of

Antonio Manuel PL

, better known as

Kiko El Fuerte

.

The action has been developed jointly in different parts of the Malaga coastline and the Alicante province, where at least five searches have been made and a number of unspecified arrests have been made by official sources, but that others consulted by this newspaper have indicated that would be around half a dozen.

Three registries have been made on the Costa del Sol:

two in Estepona

, where the inspection of a consultancy located in the central area has stood out, in which investigators who are experts in money laundering have reviewed and compiled documentation;

and

one in Casares,

specifically in a property in the Casares Golf Country Club urbanization.

The lines of work of the Civil Guard have also taken their agents to

Alicante

, a province in which searches have been made in the towns of San Fulgencio and Torrevieja.

As EL MUNDO has learned,

'Palomaris y Fuerte'

- as the operation has been baptized - has as its main objective the money laundering apparatus of the Antonio Manuel PL organization, alias Kiko El Fuerte, considered by the security forces as one of the main drug lords in the Campo de Gibraltar.

Arrested in November 2019, he was released a few months after an appeal against his preventive imprisonment was accepted.

Antonio Manuel receives his nickname for his love of lifting weights during long sessions in gyms and, according to the aforementioned sources, stands out for his violence.

An advantageous student of

the Castaña brothers

, Antonio and Francisco Tejón, two historical drug traffickers in the area, he allegedly adopted numerous security measures so that their caches touched the coast and ruled their organization with an iron fist.

Along with him,

another 16 people

were arrested

and the action carried out this Tuesday is part of the double method of action that has been implemented to end the sense of impunity that these networks displayed: first, apprehend the drug;

and second, and possibly more effective, seize all the goods acquired with the illicit profit.

The narco does not stop

This intervention by OCON Sur, in conjunction with agents from the Malaga Command and the Rapid Action Group (GAR), comes three days after the Armed Institute reported the dismantling in the province of Malaga of two organizations dedicated to

trafficking of hashish and marijuana

.

The first investigation, called 'Conga', was carried out in collaboration with the Dutch Police and allowed the capture of two people linked to a network that supposedly transported drugs from Spain to other European countries.

The Civil Guard agents located these people in

a hotel in Benalmádena

and found that they frequented a warehouse located in the Viso industrial estate of the Malaga capital.

The investigations revealed that air conditioning machines were emptied from this location to hide the drug bundles inside, which were later sent by road hidden among the merchandise transported by trucks.

A total of four people were arrested for these events, including an individual of Spanish origin who allegedly acted as an intermediary between the

Dutch organization

and the Moroccan producers.

A similar modus operandi was the one used by the dismantled French network in Operation 'Rose', as it also used trucks to transport drugs previously hidden in lettuce boxes.

The detainees had their base of operations in a disused warehouse in the

El Viso industrial estate in Malaga

, where investigators found a portable lightning device, numerous telephone terminals and other electronic devices to evade police control.

In the registry, 140 hermetic bags were located with an approximate weight of 1.8 tons of hashish and 140 kilograms of marijuana

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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