El Chato sentenced to eight years in prison as the leader of a network that sold drugs to traffickers in Alicante and Albacete

The Provincial Court of Albacete has sentenced Ángel Alberola, known as El Chato and owner of a well-known cockpit that bears his name in Aspe, to sentences totaling eight years in prison for drug trafficking and integration into a criminal group on the grounds that he was the leader of a cocaine and amphetamine distribution network to traffickers in the provinces of Alicante and Albacete. The court did not believe the version offered at the hearing by El Chato, who alleged that he made many trips for the rooster business and that he was not the owner of the more than 5.5 kilos of cocaine and 10.9 kilos of amphetamine seized by the National Police in Alcoy, nor of the half kilo of “coca” that another defendant was transporting on the day of the arrests.

Información

El Chato was tried along with thirteen other defendants and the Court has sentenced eleven defendants to sentences of between three and seven and a half years in prison. On the other hand,  it acquits two defendants as it does not consider it proven that, although they knew about the illicit activities of their accused relatives, they participated in them. Several of the defendants were defended in this trial held in Albacete by the Alicante lawyers Francisco Miguel Galiana Botella, José Soler Martín, Alicia Grau Córdoba, Iván Rodríguez Lorente, José Manuel Yepes, Joaquín de Lacy and Alejandro Rodríguez Vidal.

In the case of El Chato, the court sentences him to seven years and six months for a crime of aggravated drug trafficking and six months for criminal organization, in addition to imposing a fine of one million euros for the value of the seized drug, estimated at 774,750 euros. His cousin is sentenced to four and a half years and the resident of Alcoy in charge of transporting the drugs to the buyers has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.

Eight other defendants, who were in charge of or collaborated with several drug sales points dismantled by the Police in Albacete, the Court sentences them to sentences of between three and three and a half years in prison, since four of them are not punished for the crime of criminal organization.

According to the facts declared proven in the sentence, during 2024 El Chato, his cousin and another defendant, together with another person who could not be apprehended and is missing, were engaged “jointly, in a coordinated and stable way in the sale of cocaine and amphetamine to different buyers located in the provinces of Albacete and Alicante”.

Leadership

The ruling states that Ángel Alberola held “a leadership role” in the group and was in charge of contacting both the suppliers and the buyers of the drug, as well as managing the transactions and organizing their execution by adopting security measures to hinder police action

Another defendant resident in Alcoy was in charge of transporting the drugs under the direction of El Chato and in exchange for economic remuneration. For his part, El Chato’s cousin on  trial was in charge of accompanying him to meetings with the buyers to reinforce his security, guarded part of the money of the plot and on some occasions personally delivered the narcotic, according to the sentence of the Albacete Court.

To transport the drugs they had a car that had a cove to hide the narcotic substance and a geolocation beacon that El Chato placed on it.

The ruling refers to a dozen police surveillance on different trips made by El Chato and other defendants in order to distribute the drug to buyers and acquire it from suppliers. Many of the surveillance refer to drug and money transactions carried out with other defendants in Albacete. In one of the devices established in Aspe, the Alcoy resident on trial gave El Chato two bags with bundles of vacuum-packed bills.

Arrests

The surveillance of October 6, 2024 was what ended with the arrests of those involved. El Chato and his cousin travelled to Albacete in a car, while the person in charge of carrying the drugs was driving in the car with the geolocation beacon. The police stopped this car and located a  package with 499 grams of cocaine in a cove under the driver’s seat that they were going to deliver to traffickers in Albacete. El Chato and his cousin were then arrested and the police seized more than 5.5 kilos of cocaine and 10.9 kilos of amphetamine in a refrigerator in a house in Alcoy.

Despite trying to dissociate himself in the trial from the cache seized in Alcoy, the court points out in the ruling that both El Chato and the person in charge of transporting the drugs – who blamed the investigated who is a fugitive – were “aware of the existence of all the drugs stored” in a house on San Nicolás Street in Alcoy. The Court has no doubt that the owner of the drug was El Chato and “had the power to decide on the specific destination” of the cocaine and amphetamine seized.

On the other hand, the court rejects the requests for nullity of the telephone taps and the search carried out in Alcoy as El Chato was not present. The Court considers that there was no violation of a fundamental right.

The sentence is not final and El Chato’s lawyer, José Soler, as well as the lawyers Francisco Miguel Galiana Botella, Alicia Grau and Iván Rodríguez have already announced that they will appeal it before the High Court of Justice of Castilla La Mancha.

Related news

Ángel Alberola, who has been in prison since October 2024, was already sentenced last year to a fine of 270 euros for a minor crime of threatening the mayor of Aspe, Antonio Puerto, and still has other cases pending.

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