British man arrested after 7kg of cocaine found in car near Benidorm
A British man has been arrested at a Spanish ferry port after police found more than seven kilos of cocaine hidden in his car.
The 62-year-old was intercepted as he tried to board a ferry to the Balearic Islands from the Costa Blanca resort of Denia near Benidorm.
Police say the cocaine was concealed in a specially prepared secret compartment designed to hide the drugs.
Pictures released by the Civil Guard show a man being taken into custody, the cocaine, and where it was found.
The arrest comes nearly four months after a 27-year-old Brit was stopped at the same port with cocaine hidden in his car, worth an estimated £300,000, as he tried to board a ferry to Ibiza.
Confirming the latest arrest, a spokesman for the Civil Guard said: ‘Officers have arrested a 62-year-old man in the port of Denia after intercepting a vehicle which was transporting more than seven kilos of cocaine hidden in a compartment specially prepared for the job.
‘The drugs were discovered during a preventive check.
‘The foreign-plated car they were in was occupied solely by its driver.
‘During the inspection, officers detected a structural modification of the vehicle which was incompatible with its original design.
‘As a result, a more exhaustive search of the car was carried out, and several vacuum-packed bags with a white powder inside that turned out to be cocaine were located.
‘A small amount of cash was also seized along with the car.
‘The driver was handed over to the courts and a judge heading an ongoing criminal probe has remanded him in custody.
‘The Civil Guard is continuing its investigations to find out the origin and intended destination of the drugs seized and further arrests have not been ruled out.’
Well-placed sources confirmed the detainee is British but could not say where in the UK he is from.
In September, a British man travelling from Benidorm to Ibiza was held after 7kg of cocaine was discovered in his car at the port of Denia.
Police said he reacted to an initial stop by handing them a bottle with a small amount of cannabis resin inside in an apparent attempt to throw them off the scent.
They discovered the drugs during a full search in the storage compartment between the two front seats.
Video footage of the drug discovery released by the Civil Guard showed an officer hauling the narcotics, which had a lizard logo on them, out of the ‘hidden compartment’ and the Brit being taken away in handcuffs in a T-shirt and shorts.
At the start of October, British OAP Martin Renwick Hunter, 69, was jailed for nearly four years after being convicted of trying to smuggle almost£100,000 of drugs onto a Spanish car ferry.
He was stopped as he tried to board the Algeciras-bound vessel in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta on July 13.
Days after he was sentenced, OnlyFans model Clara Wilson, from Huthwaite, Notts, was jailed for three years after admitting trying to smuggle nearly £200,000 worth of drugs into Spain.
The 36-year-old had been arrested at Barcelona’s El Prat airport in January last year after travelling from Thailand with more than 34kg of cannabis in her suitcase.
At the end of May, Spanish police went public with the arrests of a British couple, aged 33 and 34, held at Valencia airport after 33kg of marihuana was found in their luggage.
They claimed at the time they were tourists coming from Thailand.
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