A special narcotics investigator was referred to plead guilty to the five defendants for the “mammoth” amount of 585 kg of cocaine, of Latin American origin, seized in Thessaloniki – the largest found in the city’s annals and one of the largest nationwide.

Against those arrested, the public prosecutor brought a criminal prosecution, in the degree of a felony, for forming and joining a criminal organization, trafficking in narcotics, jointly and professionally (in the form of importing, storing, possessing and transporting). In addition, on a case-by-case basis, misdemeanor charges were brought against employees, damage to foreign property and violation of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The defendants were given a deadline to prepare their apologies and remain in custody. Among them is an androgynous and their two nieces, all Albanian nationals, while the 5th is a Greek national, with Albanian roots.

The case was revealed after investigations by the Department of General Affairs of the Thessaloniki Drug Enforcement Sub-Directorate, with the assistance of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The value of the confiscated amount of cocaine is estimated, according to EL.AS, to be in the wholesale range from 11 to 33 million euros, while in retail, if it is adulterated and “broken” into smaller doses, it can even reach 175 million. euro.

The prosecuting authorities suspect that the 585 kilos of cocaine arrived in the previous period in Thessaloniki, through the port of the city. A small part of the drugs was to be trafficked in Greece, while the majority was destined to be channeled through Albania to Europe.

In addition to the impressive amount, the police were struck by the symbol that some of the 500 confiscated parcels bore: the Nazi swastika – dozens of parcels with the logo of a car manufacturing company were also found.

Experienced executives of EL.AS. report that this is a common practice followed by Latin American cartels, i.e. to use logos, giving identity to the quantities of cocaine they prepare in their laboratories. More rarely – however – these logos are also used to show specific recipients of illegal loads.

According to information, the same Nazi symbol was found last May on packages of cocaine that had been seized by the Peruvian prosecuting authorities on a Liberian-flagged ship. The illegal cargo had started from the city of Guayaquil in Ecuador with a final destination in Europe, specifically Belgium. The operation that revealed the cargo of a total of 58 kilograms of cocaine (hidden in a container of asparagus) took place in the port of Peita, Peru.

Packages of cocaine with a swastika symbol were among dozens of other logos and the amount – a record 9.5 tons of cocaine seized by Spanish authorities just last August in the port of Algeciras (in Andalucia, southern Spain) – had started from Ecuador and were hidden among bananas.