Drug racket paid Guardia Civil informer, court told

Officer in court accused of demanding five-figure sum from smugglers in Marina Alta and on the Costa del Sol in exchange for tipping them off

A GUARDIA Civil officer appeared in Dénia court this week accused of taking bribes from drug-smugglers for giving them inside information.

The undisclosed policeman, who is based in Calpe, is reported to have demanded between €40,000 and €50,000 from the gang based on the Costa del Sol for checking out whether their haul had been seized by his colleagues.

This information was gained through tapping a call between two members of the racket, which also led to the discovery that a pair of their associates based on the Costa Blanca had been kidnapped and held to ransom for €300,000.

After being arrested, the Guardia Civil officer – who had been signed off sick for the past year – was released with charges and then summoned to testify in court.

Inquiries remain open, and he has not yet been found guilty.

Two Alicante provincebased gang members were accused by the ringleaders in Andalucía of having stolen 400 kilos of hash whilst it was being transported from Málaga to the Marina Alta, where it was due to be stored.

But it turned out the drugs had been seized by local police in Benissa from a warehouse on the La Pedrera industrial estate following a call from a nearby resident reporting 'suspicious behaviour'.

Officers intercepted their van back in April, when its presence was particularly noticeable as the whole of Spain was in lockdown, and caught them in the act of unloading the goods.

The individuals responsible for the safe transfer and storage of the drugs were traced to Gata de Gorgos, Calpe and Teulada-Moraira, and were found to have been peddling their wares in the streets in all three towns, including through a hairdressing salon which served as a front for their illicit trade.

After Benissa, they were commissioned to take their load onto France, its final destination.

When the smugglers at the Costa Blanca end told their colleagues in the south that they had been busted, the Málaga gang did not believe them and took them hostage.

One of the men abducted was held captive for three weeks.

According to the Guardia Civil's Alicante-based organised crime squad, the network on the Costa del Sol is 'armed and highly-dangerous'.

Together with National Police, they seized several semiautomatic loaded guns, six topof-the-range cars, and over €220,000 in cash.