Man charged in connection with a package of cannabis mailed to him inside Ludo box

A second man has been charged in connection with a package of cannabis mailed to him inside a Ludo box.

Alejandro Aviles Gonzalvez, a 25-year-old Spanish man residing in Swieqi, pleaded not guilty before magistrate Astrid May Grima, to involvement in a drug-trafficking conspiracy, as well as the importation and sale of cannabis resin.

Gonzalvez’s arrest comes almost one month after the related arraignment of another Spanish national, David Jimenez Madrigal, who also denies importing 400 grams of cannabis resin in the mail.

On September 19, customs officers at the UPS offices in Luqa had discovered a package, which was found to contain a Ludo box, inside which approximately 400g of cannabis resin had been stashed, mailed to a Sliema property.

Preliminary police investigations revealed that the name on the package was false and the address specified was uninhabited.

Inspector Marshal Mallia told the court that Madrigal and Gonzalvez had been arrested when Madrigal had gone to collect the parcel from the parcel post office in Luqa, accompanied by Gonzalvez. 

But Gonzalvez had insisted with the police that he had only been accompanying his friend and had waited outside for Madrigal to collect his mail. He was granted police bail while the police investigated further.

Those investigations had contradicted his claims, the inspector said, because investigators had discovered photos and WhatsApp chats between the accused and a contact he had saved as “work,” linking him to the packages of drugs that were mailed to the empty Sliema property.

The chats also showed that Gonzalvez was aware of the fact that the property was abandoned and had said that he would wait for delivery outside in the street.

Gonzalvez had observed the conditions of his police bail, said the inspector, but that was when he thought that the police had no evidence against him, pointing out that he had also initially falsely claimed to be on holiday, before giving the police his address.

Inspector Mallia objected to the defence’s request for bail, telling the court that the defendant was suspected of being part of a larger drug trafficking operation by a group of Spanish nationals.

Investigations were still ongoing and the risk of Gonzalvez absconding was real, he said.

Defence lawyer Franco Debono described the inspector’s submissions as “pure conjecture” and stressed that the accused had, in fact, always kept to the conditions of his police bail.

The court, however, rejected the bail request due to the nature of the offences and the risk of the defendant absconding.

It also issued a freezing order over all of Gonzalvez’s assets.

Lawyers Franco Debono and Francesca Zarb were defence counsel.