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A English national with four kilogrammes of pure grade cocaine worth almost Lm1 million has been arrested shortly before leaving Sicily for Malta. This bust took place a few weeks after a similar sting where another Englishman this time with 50,000 ecstasy pills was apprehended. Both cases involve British nationals leaving Sicily to Malta via the catamaran sea link. The operation, coordinated by the Maltese security services and the drug squad, has dealt yet another severe blow to what is being defined as a “well structured” British-run criminal organisation based in Malta.
Weeks of surveillance, led the police to alert their Italian counterparts about the imminent arrival of an Englishman who was to collect the drugs that were hidden inside the trunk of a hired car, that was left since last July in a secured car park at Catania’s Fontanarossa airport.
The 40 year-old man, identified as “residing in St Julians”, appeared last week before a passport control check at Catania harbour just as he disembarked from the ‘MV Maria-Dolores’ catamaran arriving from Malta.
Asked to follow the border control officer for a routine check, the man is reported to have collapsed under agitation, heightening the suspicions of the Guardia di Finanza.
Flanked by Maltese undercover investigators, the Italian police were subsequently led by the same suspect to the hired car that he himself had parked at Fontanarossa airport last July after an overland trip to Spain and Holland.
Hidden inside the trunk they found a cooler bag that contained three large brown taped blocks of cocaine, that when tested, resulted to be 98 per cent pure. Fingerprints elevated from the car, the cooler bag and the packets, are reported to have matched the suspect’s.
Immediately put under arrest, the suspect was interrogated yesterday in Italy by an inquiring magistrate.
The Englishman’s arrest and the drug seizure in Catania, allowed the Maltese police to strengthen their operation on the territory, and make further arrests of suspected accomplices, who till late last night were being questioned at Floriana Headquarters.
This is the second arrest of Malta-resident British nationals in two weeks. Stephen John Lewis Marsden, from St. Paul’s Bay charged in court last July with conspiring to deal in over 50,000 ecstasy pills. He was arrested shortly after his arrival from Catania by sea.
Though the police strongly opposed Marsden being released from custody on grounds that he had not cooperated with the police in investigations, so much so that it had taken officers eight hours to find that the ecstasy was hidden in his Pajero. Magistrate Dennis Montebello granted Marsden bail on condition he signs daily at the Qawra police station, and deposited a Lm10,000 bail bond. Sources last night explained that recent investigations are revealing the presence of a newly based “well organised” British-run, drug trafficking organization on the island. “This organization is daring, and capable of financing bulk quantities. It is well connected internationally, and has belittled the usual Maltese suspects,” MaltaToday was told.
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