Traffickers paid homeless to become drug ‘mules’

EIGHT people which recruited homeless people in Malaga to become ‘drugs mules’ have been jailed for a total of 44 years.

The gang would send the vagrants to Argentina to smuggle drugs back into Spain.

The fines which they have been sentenced to pay amount to €3.6 million.

Since 2009, they had been transporting cocaine from South America to sell to others.

Six members of the group are Spanish, including some of the ‘mules’, and the leaders are Nigerian.

They would approach people in need of money in Malaga, pay for their trip from Madrid to Buenos Aires, hotel stay and passport and then get them to bring the drugs back to Spain hidden in their luggage.

They were discovered in September 2009 after several of the ‘mules’ were found carrying the cocaine and arrested.