The Public Prosecutor's Office has accused 21 people of selling cannabis, often near schools, across the Faro municipality.
The Faro District Attorney's Office commented, "some of the defendants also were charged with robbery, threats, possession of prohibited weapons and driving without a license."
Drugs, mainly cannabis, was purchased from one of the defendants, a Moroccan national, and two Spanish nationals and resold to dozens of consumers in the Faro area, namely Estoi, Penha and near the Tomás Cabreira secondary school, among others.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, this has been a complex case, with six of the 21 defendants being held in pre-trial detention and around 60 witnesses involved.
The defendants were detained by the Public Security Police in May this year in an investigation by the Criminal Action Department of Faro.
According to the police, a number of household searches were carried out during the operation, with 6,423 individual doses of hashish, 350 doses of cannabis, 28 doses of cocaine, 30 mobile phones, five precision scales, as well as various materials used for cutting and packaging the drugs.
