Drug trafficking network dismantled in Lisbon – Portugal
The PSP announced this Monday that last week it dismantled a drug trafficking network in Mouraria, Lisbon, in an operation in which 13 people were arrested, two of whom were in custody.
The thirteen detainees, 10 men and three women, aged between 23 and 76, were dedicated, “in an organized and structured way, to the sale of narcotics, cocaine, heroin and hashish”, revealed the PSP in a statement.
“In clear cooperation and division of functions, the detainees were present inside the Bairro da Mouraria, with great astuteness, under rigor, tactical and technical discipline”, highlighted the PSP.
The operation took place within the scope of a criminal process that had been under investigation for six months and which resulted, on the 22nd and 23rd of November, in six home search warrants and two non-domicile search warrants, with the 13 suspects being arrested in flagrante delicto. .
After the November 22 action, added the PSP, “in less than 24 hours, I tried to ‘open the bank’ in a very close location, where the police surprised them immediately after the resumption of illicit activity”.
According to the PSP, the leader of the group had a residence “fortified and protected for prisoners” with an annex and “another withdrawal house to dispose” of the drug, with the help of the remaining elements.
The operation seized 3,669.2 individual doses of cocaine, 4,285.2 doses of heroin, 2,078.58 individual doses of hashish, 3.4 individual doses of liamba, in addition to 7,652.08 euros, 10 weapons with trafficking.
After being heard in the first judicial interrogation, two of the detainees were held in preventive detention and the rest with periodic presentations, with the exception of two who were left with a term of identity and residence.
The PSP stressed that Mouraria, “despite continuous administrative and administrative efforts, has geographical and socially rooted characteristics that promote continuous resurgences in the sale of drugs”.
Previous interventions in the neighborhood, namely in May and June 2021, culminated in heavy penalties for trafficking, with effective imprisonment of more than four years in prison for nine defendants.
According to the police, in 2021, in the context of criminal investigation alone, 72 people were arrested in Mouraria, 14 of them preventively arrested and the rest subject to periodic presentations.
This year, “also solely from the point of view of criminal investigation, 37 people were detained there, six of them pre-trial detainees, one under house arrest and one under effective prison to serve a sentence”, he added.