Four cops are recovering after they were shot raiding a house – over a probe into criminals sending drugs to Ireland from Spain by post, it has emerged.
The Mirror has learned that the four Guardia Civil officers were shot as they tried to enter a house near Alicante last week as part of the probe.
The raid was part of Operation Sarpa – set up to combat a gang of Spanish criminals who were believed to be sending cannabis to Ireland through the post.
The Guardia Civil officers were part of the USECIC team – a heavily armed elite intervention squad similar to the Garda’ Emergency Response Unit.
The officers raided the home on the outskirts of Alicante on the Costa Blanca last Tuesday as part of the long-running probe.
The move was made after officers intercepted a package being sent from Alicante to Ireland that contained 3.5kgs of cannabis buds – worth at least €60,000.
Officers then secured judicial permission to raid four houses connected to the suspects and began a series of raids just after dawn last Tuesday.
Cops said several USECIC officers – seen in the video in full body armour – approached one suspect’s house just after 6.50am. They banged repeatedly on the door and identified themselves as Guardia Civil officers – but were met by a hail of gunfire.
It’s understood the father of one fired on the officers with a shotgun normally used for hunting - multiple bullet holes could be seen in a door
A Guardia Civil statement said: Around 6:50 a.m.. the agents of the Citizen Security Unit (USECIC) of the Alicante Command, an operational echelon specialized in executing the opening of the house and securing the people inside, to ensure safety of all, was deployed in one of the houses in El Moralet.
“After knocking on the door of the house repeatedly, and identifying themselves as officers of the Guardia Civil they realised that one of their main targets was in the house along with his father.
“Due to a lack of response from the people inside the officers started forcing the front door open. The target's father then opened fire on the officers, apparently with a hunting rifle.
“He fired numerous shots directed at the agents, hitting four of them, who have been injured. All four officers were rushed to hospital but none of their lives are in danger, cops said.
The two men inside were later arrested and were still in custody this morning. Cops later carried out a forensic search of the house for clues.
News of the anti smuggling operation comes just weeks before irish pint sized mobster John Gilligan prepares to go on trial near Alicante – for a similar scam.
The mobster (71), who was acquitted of the 1996 murder of crime reporter Veronica Guerin but locked up for 17 years on drugs importation charges, is facing three years in prison in Spain.
Gilligan is accused of sending drugs to Ireland by post. He stands to be locked up for three years if he is convicted when he appears in court later this month in Torrevieja, 50km south of Alicante.
State prosecutors are also demanding an 18-month prison sentence for unlawful weapons possession for Gilligan after cops found a gun buried in the garden of his expat home in Torrevieja in 2020.
Detectives said when he was arrested in October 2020 the gun was a rare Colt Python .357 Magnum and described it as the “same make and model” as the one used to kill the reporter in an ambush at a red light on the outskirts of Dublin in June 1996.
The Mirror later established that the gun was not used to murder Ms Guerin, however.
The raid also came in the same week that gardai were in Alicante leading a crackdown on an Irish drugs gang connected to Gilligan.
Some five properties were raided in the Alicante area in an operation aimed at smashing the gang led by self-confessed Sligo criminal Barry Young.
Gardai from Sligo-Leitrim Division, as well as officers form the Criminal Assets Bureau and the Drugs And Organised Crime Bureau worked with the Spanish National Police in the operation – which saw them raid five properties in Alicante and the surrounding Costa Blanca area.
Sources have confirmed the operation was targeted at the remnants of the gang controlled by Sligo native Barry Young – who is facing the real risk of a life sentence in Ireland after he admitted directing a crime gang earlier this month.
The 37-year-old pleaded guilty at the Special Criminal Court to directing a crime gang in Ireland and abroad between October 4, 2019 and January 15, 2022.
Sources have told us that part of the intelligence against him was that the gang he controlled was operating in the Alicante area of Spain – and last week’s Garda crackdown was a key part of the takedown of that outfit.
The long-running probe was led by Chief Superintendent Aiden Glackin, the top garda in the Sligo-Leitrim division who set up a special investigation to take on Young and four other crime gangs in the north west.
Sources say Young and his gang were heavily involved in the drugs trade in Sligo – and were also making inroads into the business in the Alicante area.
Young, of Geldof Drive, Cranmore, Co Sligo, will be sentenced by the Special Criminal Court in Dublin in May.
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