On Tuesday, the Judiciary Police arrested five men with 780,000 individual doses of cocaine, in flagrante delicto, at Lisbon airport, as part of the “Phantom Passengers” operation, in which 30,000 euros were also seized in house searches.
According to a statement issued today by the Polícia Judiciária (PJ), the five men are suspected of being part of “an organized criminal group dedicated to drug trafficking by air” and were arrested in an operation by the PJ’s National Unit for Combating Drug Trafficking, as part of an investigation by the Lisbon Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP).
The detainees are aged between 28 and 42 and were brought before the court for initial questioning and the application of coercive measures, while the investigation is still ongoing.
“In the course of the “Phantom Passengers” operation, it was possible to ascertain that the detainees, armed with plane tickets they had not used, had entered Lisbon Airport with the intention of removing two suitcases containing cocaine from the luggage belt, coming from a flight in Latin America,” the PJ explained in a statement.
According to the PJ, in the course of the operation, which included the collaboration of the PSP division at the airport, “it was possible to see that two of the detainees, under the supervision and control of the other three, who were also carrying out counter-surveillance maneuvers, collected two suitcases which they transported outside the airport, where they were eventually intercepted”, and that the inside of the luggage contained “the equivalent of around 780,000 individual doses of cocaine”.
“Following the arrests, house searches were also carried out and around 30,000 euros in banknotes, three cars, a prohibited firearm, ammunition and various documents were seized,” the PJ added in the statement.
