Spain busts global heroin ring

Madrid, Agency
An international heroin trafficking network with activities in Europe, Asia and Africa has been busted in Spain and 10 people arrested, Spanish police announced Monday.
Among the people arrested are the leader of the organization, which coordinated all its drug trafficking activities from Madrid and worked with collaborators in Iran, Iraq, Senegal, Ghana and Portugal.

The bulk of the organization was based in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of northwestern Africa.

Police said the investigation had allowed them to prevent several shipments of drugs, something that alarmed the traffickers, who then tried to flee Spain to set themselves up in another country but wound up being arrested instead.

Drug shipments were also thwarted on Grand Canary island, where one of the ring's shipment recipients was arrested and 12 kilograms of heroin were seized, and in Barcelona, where police arrested a courier with 18 kilos of the narcotic hidden in a suitcase.