Authorities in Spain said they have seized a 42-piece dinner set made from 42 pounds of cocaine and arrested the intended recipient.
Police said a 35-year-old Spanish man, identified only as JVLL, was arrested and charged with an offense against public health after police seized the package in an international operation coordinated with Venezuela, where the package originated, The Times of London reported Friday.
Investigators said they believe the man was forced to become involved in the cocaine trade by drug traffickers in Venezuela.
Police said the cocaine had been destined for sale in Catalonia, Spain.
According to the police, parcels sent in the post are a popular method of smuggling medium-size shipments of cocaine.
The drug can be diluted within liquids. Another method is to impregnate clothing or other materials with the cocaine.
Two weeks ago, Spanish police arrested a Chilean man with a broken leg whose “plaster cast” had been made with the illegal substance.
“I have always been fascinated by life, on just about anything and everything. I mean, sure I am not going out and buying million dollar airplanes and running around in beautiful boats. The most fascinating thing in life to me is chasing beautiful women.”
Rosalio Reta and his friend, Gabriel Cardona, were members of a three-person cell of American teenagers working as cartel hit men in the United States, according to prosecutors. The third was arrested by Mexican authorities and stabbed to death in prison there three days later.
In interviews with CNN, Laredo police detectives and prosecutors told how Cardona and Reta were recruited by the cartel to be assassins after they began hitting the cantinas and clubs just across the border.
Over a nearly one-year period starting in June 2005, the border town of Laredo, Texas, saw a string of seven murders. At first glance, the violence looked like isolated, gangland-style killings. But investigators started suspecting something more sinister.
Prosecutors say they quickly discovered these two teenagers were homegrown assassins, hired to carry out the dirty work of the notorious Gulf Cartel.
“There are sleeper cells in the U.S.,” said Detective Garcia. “They’re here, they’re here in the United States.”
The teenagers lived in several safe houses around Laredo and drove around town in a $70,000 Mercedes-Benz.
As the teens became more immersed in the cartel lifestyle, their appearance changed. Cardona had eyeballs tattooed on his eyelids. Reta’s face became covered in tattoo markings. (Prosecutors say during his trial Reta used make-up to cover the facial markings.) And both sported tattoos of “Santa Muerte,” the Grim Reaper-like pseudo-saint worshipped by drug traffickers.
Excellent story of the Heist of the Antwerp Diamond Center:
It was February 16, 2003 — a clear, frozen Sunday evening in Belgium. Notarbartolo took the E19 motorway out of Antwerp. In the passenger seat, a man known as Speedy fidgeted nervously, damp with sweat. Notarbartolo punched it, and his rented Peugeot 307 sped south toward Brussels. They hadn’t slept in two days.
Speedy scanned the traffic behind them in the side-view mirror and maintained a tense silence. Notarbartolo had worked with him for 30 years—they were childhood buddies—but he knew that his friend had a habit of coming apart at the end of a job. The others on the team hadn’t wanted Speedy in on this one—they said he was a liability. Notarbartolo could see their point, but out of loyalty, he defended his friend. Speedy could handle it, he said.
And he had. They had executed the plan perfectly: no alarms, no police, no problems. The heist wouldn’t be discovered until guards checked the vault on Monday morning. The rest of the team was already driving back to Italy with the gems. They’d rendezvous outside Milan to divvy it all up. There was no reason to worry. Notarbartolo and Speedy just had to burn the incriminating evidence sitting in a garbage bag in the backseat.Notarbartolo pulled off the highway and turned onto a dirt road that led into a dense thicket. The spot wasn’t visible from the highway, though the headlights of passing cars fractured through the trees. Notarbartolo told Speedy to stay put and got out to scout the area.
He passed a rusty, dilapidated gate that looked like it hadn’t been touched since the Second World War. It was hard to see in the dark, but the spot seemed abandoned. He decided to burn the stuff near a shed beside a small pond and headed back to the car.
When he got there, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Speedy had lost it. The contents of the garbage bag was strewn amongst the trees. Speedy was stomping through the mud, hurling paper into the underbrush. Spools of videotape clung to the branches like streamers on a Christmas tree. Israeli and Indian currency skittered past a half-eaten salami sandwich. The mud around the car was flecked with dozens of tiny, glittering diamonds. It would take hours to gather everything up and burn it.
Notarbartolo glared at him. The forest was quiet except for the occasional sound of a car or truck on the highway. It was even possible to hear the faint gurgling of a small stream. Speedy was breathing fast and shallow—the man was clearly in the midst of a full-blown panic attack.
“Get back in the car,” Notarbartolo ordered. They were leaving. Nobody would ever find the stuff here.
