Crime: Cocaine by sea container? Trial against ten men

crime
Cocaine by sea container? Trial against ten men

Pretending to be a metal business, more than four tons of cocaine are said to have been smuggled from South America to Germany via the port of Hamburg over the years. A gang is said to have been operating from Berlin and the surrounding area for years, conducting illegal business through a network of shell companies.

Almost nine months after their arrest, ten men between the ages of 33 and 63 are sitting behind bulletproof glass in room 500 of the Berlin district court on Wednesday. On the fringes of the trial, chief public prosecutor Günter Sohnrey spoke of an “outstanding procedure”.

Large-scale cocaine smuggling

Immense amounts of cocaine were brought to Germany. “We have to assume that just over four tons came onto the market in Germany,” said the prosecutor. The investigations had lasted two years and had been conducted with “insane effort”. The group is associated with a total of around 6.6 tons of cocaine. “The accused are essentially logisticians who took on the transport to Europe for wholesalers in South America in return for a share of the profits,” Sohnrey is certain.

For four defendants, their lawyers announced statements at a later date. The defender of a 37-year-old said the allegations were “in many ways just constructs and hypotheses”. For a 63-year-old, who stated that he was a lawyer at the trial, one of his lawyers said in a defense attorney’s statement that his client was not privy to the alleged background to the transports.

Alleged smuggling trips since 2011

The trial is about a total of 16 suspected smuggling trips between summer 2011 and summer 2021. According to the prosecution, the drugs were hidden in hollow metal plates specially made for this purpose. Cocaine was smuggled disguised as deliveries of lead or copper. The hiding places were prepared in such a way that they could not be discovered using standard X-ray methods. Front companies, through which the business was run, had also rented halls first in northern Germany and later in Brandenburg. Drugs were developed there.

According to the indictment, since 2012 several sea containers, each with several hundred kilograms of cocaine, have reached Germany from Brazil via the port of Hamburg. Three alleged main perpetrators, who are said to have acted as a gang since 2011, would have received a total of around 9.3 million euros. The three main defendants are said to have been involved in 15 crimes. According to the indictment, they had joined forces before August 2011. Her plan was “to first set up a company for the purpose of concealing her true intentions, through which the import of narcotics – under the legend of legal import transactions – into the Federal Republic of Germany should take place”. Another defendant has provided assistance in some cases by providing a network of front companies he runs for billing purposes, prosecutors said. Other defendants joined the group in 2019 and 2020. All of the accused are in custody.

14 arrest warrants executed

According to investigators, the suspects used the Canadian crypto messenger service Sky ECC to communicate in the last acts. It is the first trial in Berlin in which this encrypted communication system plays a role.

The investigation was triggered by the discovery of 690 kilograms of cocaine worth around 140 million euros in November 2018 in a shipping container in the port of the Brazilian city of Santos. The delivery was addressed to a company in Berlin. In November 2021, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) took action against the alleged gang with searches in Germany and abroad. 14 arrest warrants were executed. Overall, the investigators spoke at the time of a total of 28 suspects aged 22 to 62 years.

More than 30 hearing days are planned until the end of January 2023 for the trial of gang trafficking in narcotics or aiding and abetting it.

dpa