Spanish police announced on Saturday that they had dismantled a cocaine smuggling ring linked to the Hell’s Angels, seizing 1,000 kilogrammes (2,200 pounds) of the drug at the eastern port of Valencia.
Spain is a key entry point for cocaine coming into Europe from Latin America.
The operation, coordinated by the European Union’s law enforcement agency, Europol, led to the arrest of 20 individuals, with half of them being remanded in custody.
Arrests were made primarily in Spain, while two suspects were detained in Belgium and one in France.
The arrested individuals were connected to a faction of the Hell’s Angels in Belgium and were largely responsible for overseeing and retrieving drug shipments.
The gang is accused of smuggling cocaine hidden in shipping containers arriving at the port. They used so-called “spidermen” to scale stacks of containers and recover the cocaine, employing bolt cutters or radial arm saws to access the drugs.
