“This was the biggest seizure on record, by air, in the Azores,” said Renato Furtado, Coordinator of the Ponta Delgada Criminal Investigation Department of the Judicial Police (PJ), confirming to journalists the seizure of 38 kilos of drugs, specifically hashish, cocaine, and heroin, which led to the arrest of a couple living in Lisbon.
Speaking at the premises of the Azores Criminal Investigation Department, Renato Furtado said that 37.3 kilos of hashish were seized, divided into 360 packages, 362 grams of heroin, and 309 grams of cocaine.

“This is 80,000 days of consumption, taking into account the average individual daily dose and what is considered to be all the consumers take in a day. This is what studies indicate a drug addict consumes per day of hashish, heroin, and cocaine,” explained the coordinator of the PJ’s Ponta Delgada Criminal Investigation Department.
Regarding the daily amount that a study indicates a drug addict consumes per day of these substances, Renato Furtado clarified that it is 0.5 grams per day of hashish, 0.2 grams per day of cocaine, and 0.1 grams per day of heroin.
Furtado also explained that the amount of heroin and cocaine would be higher “if it wasn’t already highly pure”.
“Both heroin and cocaine have a high degree of purity, which means that they are cut down, in other words, more substances are added, demultiplexing this quantity into higher quantities, which are then distributed in the networks that supply consumers,” he said.


The detainees, a 47-year-old man, and a 38-year-old woman living in the Lisbon area, have no criminal record and were arrested “immediately after” their arrival on the island of São Miguel a week ago.
“In the course of the investigations we carried out, we realized that they might be transporting large quantities of drugs. And it was because of this knowledge that we had, as part of the police action to Combat Drug Trafficking that was carried out, that they were arrested with this drug before they had the opportunity to pass it on to the local network in São Miguel,” he explains.
According to the coordinator of the PJ’s Ponta Delgada Criminal Investigation Department, “this was the biggest seizure made this year” in this area. “There are more and more seizures in this area, with increasingly significant quantities of drugs being seized.”


Despite this being the “biggest seizure on record, by air”, our interlocutor confirmed that there have been much bigger seizures, “but by sea”.
The operation was conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department of the Azores, with the collaboration of the National Republican Guard, through the Cynotechnical Section.
The detainees were brought before the court of Ponta Delgada for questioning and were remanded in custody at the Ponta Delgada Prison.


Filipe Torres is a journalist for Correio dos Açores-Natalino Viveiros, director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks Luso Financial for sponsoring NOVIDADES.