Police Find Workers Left to Die During Raid of Illegal Underground Cigarette Factory in Spain

Authorities in Spain have arrested 20 people in connection to the discovery of an illegal underground cigarette factory which was producing thousands of cigarettes an hour.

The Spanish Civil Guard (Guardia Civil), along with Europol and law enforcement agencies from Poland, Lithuania and the U.K., discovered the bunker four meters (13 feet) underground beneath a horse stable in Malaga, southern Spain.

During a raid of the bunker, Spanish police located six workers of Ukrainian nationality inside the bunker living in unsanitary conditions.

The men were allegedly not allowed to leave the factory on their own and were locked inside during their shifts which involved "extremely dangerous and toxic conditions."

Beds and living quarters were also found for the workers in the four-meter deep bunker.

The workers were also experiencing breathing difficulties after the electricity supply used to generate air was switched off after the 20 suspects were arrested.

The members of the alleged criminal gang did not tell police about the workers being trapped in the bunker following their arrest. Police said the workers would have certainly died if they had not been found in time.

"If the acting force [police] had not located the clandestine factory in time, the lack of oxygen would have made the conditions of the underground facilities incompatible with the life of the workers who were there in a short time," a Spanish Civil Guard spokesperson said.

The bunker is believed to be the first underground tobacco factory located in Europe, and was able to produce 3,500 cigarettes per hour.

More than three million cigarettes were seized by law enforcement officers during raids across 13 locations in connection to the criminal gang.

"The cigarettes were made in unsanitary conditions and of low-quality components," a Europol spokesperson said. "The criminal group distributed the cigarettes on the European black market, estimated to represent about 46.3 billion cigarettes in 2018."

A total of 20kg of hashish and 144kg of marijuana were also seized, along with three weapons, eight GPS tracking devices and one jamming device.

The Spanish Civil Guard said the 20 gang members were mostly British, including its alleged leader identified as D.D.

The U.K.'s National Crime Agency (NCA) confirmed D.D. is 31-year-old fugitive Daniel Dobbs.

In November 2018, Dobbs managed to escape from an open prison in South Yorkshire, England, after he was sentenced to 13-and-a-half years in prison in January 2014 for drug trafficking offenses.

In 2019, the NCA identified him as living in Spain under a false name and worked with authorities in Europe to bring him under arrest.

Alison Abbott, of the NCA's offender lifetime management unit, said: "Dobbs's arrest is a fantastic result and shows the power of our international partnerships."