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Spanish police smash synthetic drug rings

Xinhua, April 28, 2016 Adjust font size:

Spanish police have confirmed they broke two smuggling rings dedicated to the important and distribution of synthetic drugs and arrested 52 people.

The Spanish Interior Ministry explained that the first operation, which happened in the east coast city of Alicante, led to the arrest of nine people, mainly Belgians, and the seizure of around 150,000 doses of synthetic cannabis.

The drug is thought to have been imported from Asia and then divided into individual doses in Spain and distributed online throughout Europe in general, but Germany in particular, where its use has been linked to at least one death.

The doses were priced at between 12-25 U.S. dollars, meaning the street value of the haul is thought to be somewhere in the region of between two to three million U.S. dollars.

The second operation, which was not related to the first, took place in the southern region of Andalusia.

Police raided around 60 shops and made 43 arrests while seizing around 10,000 doses of both synthetic marijuana and cathinone, which produce an effect similar to that of cocaine or amphetamine.

Spanish Civil Guard spokesman, Fernando de Mesa, told the press that the operations had "removed potentially lethal substances from the market." Endit