Operation by the French Tax Agency and Customs
- Five members of an organization arrested in Barcelona, following the interception in France of a container with 1,741 kilos of marijuana
- The drugs were intercepted at the port of Marseille and tracked to their destination for a ‘controlled delivery’.
May 29, 2026. Customs Surveillance officials from the Tax Agency and the services of the French National Directorate of Customs Intelligence and Investigation (DNRED) have dismantled an organization dedicated to the extraction of marijuana in the port of Barcelona. The operation, called ‘Waterfall’, has led to the arrest of five people from the criminal network – the recipients of the drugs and a customs representative – and the interception in France of a container with 1,700 kilos of marijuana, originating in Thailand, on which a judicially ‘controlled delivery’ was carried out until its arrival at the port of Barcelona, and its subsequent delivery to the importer’s facilities, which allowed the subsequent dismantling of the network.
The operation began when agents from the Regional Customs Directorate of Marseille decided to deploy a reinforced control device on the containers unloaded at the port of Marseille. On May 18, after inspecting one of them, with its end-use in the port of Barcelona and whose declared merchandise consisted of rubber boots and men’s cotton t-shirts, they discovered that it contained marijuana hidden in heat-sealed bags.
The container had departed from Thailand, making stops in Malaysia and Singapore, before arriving in France.
The system used for smuggling by the criminal organization consisted of taking advantage of the names of companies commonly involved in container traffic to mask a shipment of which they had no knowledge, with the aim of evading possible customs controls.
After coordinating with the Deputy Directorate General of Operations of the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency, the National Directorate of Customs Intelligence and Investigations of France requested authorization from the Aix-en-Provence prosecutor’s office to carry out an international ‘controlled delivery’ in order to identify and arrest the recipients of the narcotics. The measure was ratified by the Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office and the Spanish judicial authority. The specialized interregional jurisdiction of Marseille then referred the case to the DNRED for investigation.
Container surveillance
Upon its arrival in Barcelona on May 22, the container was continuously monitored by Customs Surveillance officials while the merchandise was unloaded at the destination warehouse within the port facilities. The surveillance continued until the 24th of the same month when investigators detected a group of four people, two Spanish citizens and two Chinese, who accessed the warehouse at closing time and proceeded to handle the merchandise under surveillance. At that moment the four individuals were arrested.
The customs representative in charge of the shipment was subsequently arrested for his involvement in the scheme.
The operation remains open and further arrests related to the logistical or financial infrastructure of the criminal group are not ruled out under the direction of the Court of Instruction number 11 of Barcelona.