It began with a routine inspection of banana crates in a Malaga warehouse back in 2018.
What officers found inside would unravel one of the most audacious drug empires ever seen on the Costa del Sol.
Hidden among boxes from Costa Rica were 4,813 kilos of high-purity cocaine – a record haul for Malaga and the second largest ever seized on Spanish soil – up to that moment. Its street value was close to €1 billion.
Seven years on, the National Court has handed down sentences to those behind the smuggling ring, bringing to an end a criminal saga that stretched from Marbella and Puerto Banus to international cartels and even a Belgian prison cell.
Fifteen traffickers were convicted, with the two ringleaders each sentenced to 11 and a half years in jail and ordered to pay fines exceeding €934 million, Spanish daily Malaga Hoy report.
The investigation revealed a network that lived in the heart of the Costa del Sol’s luxury playground.
In Puerto Marina, a Mercedes was found stuffed with cash – €938,100 in bundles of notes – alongside 18 watches from Rolex, Audemars Piguet and Richard Mille.
READ MORE: Gang paid ‘mules’ €10k each to pick up cocaine-filled suitcases from Madrid airport
In a bank safe lay another €275,000; in a storage locker, €218,750 more. Police even found a diamond and turquoise pendant.
Mercedes cars loaded with cash were found in Puerto Marina, safes stuffed with diamonds and banknotes were seized, and dozens of Rolexes and Richard Mille watches were piled up like ingots.
One trafficker had almost €1 million in notes hidden in his Mercedes, parked just a short drive from Puerto Banus.
But alongside the glamour lay violence.
Police uncovered a military-style arsenal: an AK-47, five submachine guns, pistols, a revolver and four fragmentation grenades.
Judges ruled this was not the weaponry of ‘common criminals’ but proof of a cartel prepared for war.
The group had operated out of Malaga since at least 2017, using shell companies, false identities and encrypted phones to move narcotics on a massive scale.
Raids in Benalmadena and Arroyo de la Miel found nearly 40,000 ecstasy pills and chemical equipment capable of producing thousands more.
READ MORE: Police seize 1.3 tonnes of cocaine on Malaga-bound ship as stowaway narcos attempted to offload it
Experts valued the gang’s synthetic drug potential at more than €380 million.
Each member had a defined role: logistics, storage, chemical procurement or money laundering.
But it was Marbella and Banus where the profits were flaunted, in luxury homes, flashy cars and jewellery – a narco-lifestyle hidden in plain sight.
The court’s verdict in 2025 finally closed the book on a case that began with bananas in 2018.
What looked like the ordinary trade of the Costa del Sol concealed a billion-euro narco empire, and its spectacular collapse might just make it into the Costa del Crime hall of fame – alongside the many other spectacular cocaine kingdoms.
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