Kings of cocaine

AN incredible five tonnes of cocaine - worth €265 million - has been seized at a warehouse in Alicante.

Police arrested five Albanians over the haul that is the largest bust ever recorded in the province.

The confiscated drugs, concealed within a shipment of bananas, had an 87% purity.

The raid came after months of careful investigation centred upon Alicante’s Llano del Espartal industrial estate.

The gang members were extremely cautious, frequently travelling abroad and maintaining multiple residences to evade detection.

The criminals had registered both the warehouse and the vehicles used in their operations under seemingly legitimate companies. One Spanish national also arrested has possible connections with other criminal groups in the Valencia region, utilising front companies for vehicle rentals and warehouse leasing.

Police swung into action when several containers arrived at Malaga port from Ecuador in June. They followed two of the containers to Alicante and only made arrests when they were unloaded at the warehouse.

Inside the containers were 400 packages of cocaine, weighing a total of 4,800 kilograms.

Raids were then undertaken at various homes in Alicante and Elche, where €6,000 in cash and four high-end vehicles were seized.

Grains of recovery

OVER €1 million is to be spent restoring sand dunes in over a dozen parts of the Mar Menor.

A total of 15 areas around La Manga will see over 117,000 m2 of dunes restored.

The work will take two years to complete between Los Alemanes beach - next to the Marchamalo salt flats - all the way to Veneziola beach.

An incredible 975 invasive shrub or tree species along with 270 herbaceous species will be eliminated. At the same time, 107,400 dune plants, including the threatened Mar Menor asparagus, will be planted.