The Statue of Popeye That Had More Than Just Spinach… and Belonged to the Sinaloa Cartel

The statue of Popeye, the cartoon character who gains extraordinary strength by eating spinach to defeat the villains, stands a meter and a half tall. The Sinaloa Cartel was inspired by this sailor to smuggle 40 kilos of methamphetamine into the Iberian Peninsula for distribution there and throughout the continent.

Popeye provided a crucial clue in the second phase of Operation Saga. While it’s true that 40 kilos of drugs is a relatively small amount compared to the 1,800 kilos seized from the same Spanish-Mexican organization in 2024, it served to open the door and deliver the final blow to the network.

Up close, the statue is majestic—though tastes vary. It features metallic shades of orange, pink, gold, blue, and green, and depicts the moment Popeye is about to eat his spinach to gain his extraordinary power.

According to the National Police, drug traffickers are often known for their gaudy taste. Contrary to what they thought, the statue aroused suspicion, and the officers immediately suspected that its destination wasn’t a quirky collector, and they were right. The enormous marble base concealed the drugs, packed in dozens of plastic bags.

The destination was the island of Tenerife, where a Spanish drug trafficker, highly sought after by the police, was waiting.  The officers killed two birds with one stone: they seized the methamphetamine and located and arrested him and eight others, all in coordination with Court Number 6 of the National High Court and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

They Came to Stay

This was part of the second and final phase of Operation Saga. It all began in 2024, when police seized up to 1,800 kilograms of methamphetamine in Alicante, in the Valencian Community. The drugs belonged to the Sinaloa Cartel, and five arrests were made at that time.

However, investigators didn’t completely dismantle the organization, and this second operation served to arrest some individuals who had managed to escape and were trying to restart their drug trafficking operations from Mexico and Spain.

One of them was a Mexican national male who had fled from the police during the first phase of the operation. He initially lived in Villena, a small town of just 34,000 inhabitants, where he went unnoticed. He belonged to the Sinaloa Cartel, and to prevent him from “singing” and to keep him under control, he was moved to the Malasaña neighborhood in Madrid, one of the most vibrant areas of the Spanish capital, full of young people, bars, and alternative shops.

Once again, the Mexican cartel tried to mislead the police by sending the man there, about whom the only thing known is that he is middle-aged and has a distinct Northern Mexican accent.

According to the police, the drug trafficker couldn’t enjoy Madrid’s nightlife in Malasaña; quite the opposite, in fact. He didn’t even go out for groceries. He was completely confined to a discreet apartment without any luxuries. Every month he received 2,500 euros (about 52,000 pesos) to pay for food, rent, and, above all, to keep him from talking to anyone.

The arrested man lived in a kind of limbo; he couldn’t return to Mexico because he knew he was wanted, nor could he live a normal life in Madrid or anywhere else in Spain. At the time of his arrest, he confessed everything the police asked him, confirming what they had warned two years earlier in the first phase of Operation Saga: that Mexican drug cartels had arrived in Spain and Europe to stay.

Surprise under the marble

Alicante was a key point in the operation, as one of the network’s key men lived there. A Spaniard, also middle-aged, used his marble sales business as a front—a completely legal company—to import drugs sent by the Sinaloa Cartel to Spain.

Until then, it had been a lucrative business, as the businessman had built a bunker under one of his industrial warehouses where he kept some of his treasures.

The company is located in Novelda, another small town in Alicante with a population of 26,000.  The investigation led the police there, and after hours of work, aided by high technology and sniffer dogs, they discovered €3 million in cash buried—of course, under marble.

The National Police located a crucial part of the logistical and financial structure of the Spanish-Mexican organization in this area. Four arrests and three searches were carried out in this region, an intensity that reinforces the role of the Alicante area as one of the key nodes of the criminal network.

From Dubai to the world

The leader of the entire logistical operation was a Spaniard who had been living in Dubai for years. However, he traveled periodically to Mexico. In Spain, he only had a record of property crimes.

He decided to leave his life as an ordinary worker and seek business opportunities in the fashionable place for doing business: the United Arab Emirates. There he lived a life of luxury and maintained contact with his compatriots: El Tigre and Teddy.

His lawyer advised him not to return to Spain until the secrecy order on the latest police operation was lifted. However, he was caught by agents at the airport as he disembarked in Spain.

The drug trafficker had used someone he had known for years in his business. The marble worker from Alicante had never failed him until he was arrested.  The organization attempted to extend its reach to several European countries and even to Australia, where they tried to forge connections without success.

He planned to send the drugs through the Port of Barcelona, ​​hidden among medical supplies. However, the seizure of drugs concealed in lab coats thwarted this plan due to the fear of being detected.

With this second phase, the Spanish National Police consider the infrastructure of the Spanish-Mexican network in Spain to be completely dismantled.  The security forces are aware that there will be replacements for the arrested drug traffickers, meaning that the Mexican cartels will continue to try, and that there is currently a stalemate.

Meanwhile, after its successful display inside the National Police bunker in the Canillas neighborhood of Madrid, the Popeye statue—like all the seized drugs—will be destroyed, along with its spinach.

Source: Milenio