Finnish Customs officials teamed up with the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Helsinki Police to crack down on an international ring that had been bringing drugs into Finland since at least 2007. Authorities estimate that the network had earned some five million euros from the business.
On Monday the Customs Board announced that citizens of Finland, Britain and Spain had been detained in connection with the scheme. They are suspected of smuggling 28 kilos cocaine, nearly 300 kilos hashish and two kilos of ecstasy with a street value estimated at five million euros.
By air and road
Three Finns and two Britons were taken into custody at a holiday cottage in Nurmijärvi, about 40 km north of Helsinki. A Spanish suspect has been detained in Spain.
According to preliminary investigation, an Englishman brought in drugs from the Netherlands and Spain on behalf of a Finnish man. He smuggled the substances by hiding them in a car and within his own body. The mule arrived by air or by driving in from Sweden through Tornio. Law enforcement officials suspect that he began doing so in 2007 and continued until late last year.
Nabbed at Nurmijärvi cabin
The breakthrough in the case came in mid-December 2015 when authorities stopped two UK citizens arriving in Tornio by car. Finnish officials had been tipped off in advance by foreign authorities that the English courier was bringing a large amount of coke and hash from Spain.
NBI police tailed the two to a rented cabin in Nurmijärvi, where they were joined by three Finns that evening. Police swooped in, detaining all five people, and seizing two kilos of cocaine and 8 kilos of hash as well as more than 31,000 euros in cash. Later more than 8500 euros were recovered from a hotel room rented by one of the Finnish detainees. All six suspects remain behind bars.