The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court (TS) has rejected the annulment incident presented by a man sentenced to serve a sentence of two and a half years in prison and the payment of 1.7 million euros for finding in his possession 783 kilos of hashish.
At the end of 2022, the TS issued the first sentence resulting from the appeal presented against the ruling of the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in which it sentenced him to three years and three months for a crime against public health in the modality of substances that do not cause serious harm to health.
At that time the Supreme Court partially upheld the appeal of the now appellant and imposed a three-year sentence on him. However, in March 2023 this ruling had to be rectified, so the sentence was reduced to two years and six months but the penalty of 1.7 million was maintained.
Next, the accused filed an extraordinary motion for annulment appealing, among other things, that the inviolability of the domicile guaranteed by the Constitution had been violated and that an error had been made when setting the sentence.
Now, the TS confirms that the convicted person from the first instance is considered responsible for a crime against public health for his “specific” participation in the landing of the 783 kilo shipment on the southern coast of Tenerife, applying the mitigating circumstance of confession. .
The Court decided to set the prison sentence at three years and three months due to the significant volume of the drugs seized and precisely for this same reason the Supreme Court rejects the appeal for annulment and ratifies the final sentence, which represents a nine-month reduction on the original. .
The events took place in the early morning of October 15, 2015 and the landing of the 782 kilograms took place on El Valito beach in the town of Marazul in Adeje.
The drugs were distributed in 26 bales loaded in a van that was intercepted by the Civil Guard shortly after. Once analyzed, it was found that the seized hashish had a purity of 10% and would have reached a value of 1.2 million euros on the illicit market.
From here, another eleven people were arrested and the homes of some of them were entered, where other quantities of hashish, cell phones and cash were found.
Finally, the Court considered it proven that the members of this group carried out an activity consisting of the importation by sea of hashish from Morocco and transportation of the caches through third parties who approached the mother ships and took them ashore.
The appellant before the Supreme Court who requested the annulment of the sentence was in charge of the distribution and sale of hashish as he acknowledged and could be corroborated through the observation and control of his communications. The other of the convicted persons was in charge of driving the van in which the 782 kilos that were seized were found.
