It was the Calabrese Mafia’s favourite port for the smuggling of cocaine into Europe, but a mega-operation by the Portuguese police has finally shut down business going through the northern Port of Leixões.
Jornal de Notícias today this week gives details of the police investigation that has seen 44 people detained and more than 300 kg of cocaine apprehended.
Investigations were run out of Italy and concentrated on the “Ndrangheta” – described as the mafia’s most powerful arm and the organisation that controls the traffic of cocaine to Europe.
Coimbra police are reported to have been among the forces most active in the operation that took over four years to identify suspects from Italy to Brazil.
It was during these years that Leixões became identified as one of the principal points of entry for cocaine into Europe.
A police swoop which recovered 313 kgs of the drug last year has removed Leixões from the mafia’s drug map, says the national paper, but the operation is still ongoing with at least eight further suspects continuing to elude the authorities.
