Spanish police arrest British drug dealer

Spanish police arrested British drug kingpin Robert Dawes at his luxury villa in Costa del Sol, according to an announcement on Friday.

The 44-year-old from Nottingham was captured back in November during a police raid coordinated with Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency, although details of his arrest were not released until now.

The Guardia Civil said Dawes ran the biggest criminal organization in all of Europe, trafficking cocaine from South America to the European continent and heroin from Turkey and Afghanistan to Britain. He was based in Spain, and would frequently meet with South American criminals, Spanish authorities said.

Dawes has since been extradited to France, where several members of his gang were arrested in 2013. He's also facing a criminal probe in the Netherlands related to a string of murders in 2014 and 2015, part of an alleged turf war with other drug dealers on the continent.

blc/jil (AP, AFP)