Spanish authorities have broken up a gang of drug traffickers that had six light planes for bringing drugs from Africa into Spain.The criminal organization was led by a veteran airline pilot, arrested together with 11 other gang members, who used airfields and landing strips in wooded areas in Andalucía to evade detection by security forces.Besides the six airplanes, the Civil Guard, Spain's militarized national police, seized assault rifles and other weapons plus documents and a quantity of drugs.The first phase of the operation was launched last November, when the Civil Guard was alerted to the existence of several drug traffickers suspected to bringing hashish from Africa into Spain.At the end of February three Spanish citizens and two Frenchmen were arrested in the southern province of Seville with 400 kilos (880 pounds) of hashish.A laboratory was also dismantled where the drug was ground up and mixed with chemicals to make it undetectable by any possible police inspections.After this first phase, the Civil Guard verified that some gang members were still at large.The group had acquired new fast, long-range aircraft for transporting cocaine, using routes familiar to the gang from their experience of bringing hashish into Spain.These later investigations led to the capture of one of the kingpins, a Spaniard, together with a second pilot of Colombian origin and an airfield employee who apparently aided in the operations.
