Spanish police have rescued six workers who were left trapped and gasping for air in a counterfeit cigarette factory located in a bunker 4m underground, police and Europol said on Thursday.
Both Europol and Spanish police said that it was the first underground counterfeit cigarette factory discovered in the EU.
Last week, police found the site underneath some stables near Moran, a mountain town in the southern province of Malaga.
Capable of producing more than 3,500 cigarettes per hour, the manufacturing complex was fitted with living quarters and beds, they said in separate statements.
“When officers entered the clandestine factory, they found six workers inside who were having serious difficulties breathing” because the generator that was used to pump air into the bunker had run out of gas, the police said.
Police arrested 20 people suspected of running the operation early on Feb. 13, but none of them mentioned that six Ukrainian workers were still locked inside, leaving them “abandoned to their fate.”
“When they noticed the lack of air, they headed to the exit of the ‘bunker,’ which was blocked from the outside, leading them to start screaming and banging on the container blocking the exit, but officers on the surface could not hear their calls for help because the installation was soundproof,” they said.
By the evening, officers managed to find the underground factory and used a forklift to move the shipping container that was hiding the entrance, rescuing the workers trapped inside.
“If the officials had not found the clandestine factory in time, the lack of oxygen would soon have made the conditions in the underground installations incompatible with the survival of the workers who were there,” they said.
Among those arrested was a 30-year-old Briton identified only by the initials “D.D.” who was believed to be one of the ringleaders.
Wanted by the British authorities, he went on the run when on prison furlough, while serving time for drug trafficking.
Europol said the workers had been forced to work “in extremely dangerous and toxic conditions” and were “not allowed to leave the facility on their own.”
It suspects the criminal group distributed the cigarettes on the European black market.
As part of the operation, police seized 153,000 packs of cigarettes, as well as a quantity of cannabis resin and marijuana.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS