In Spain drug trafficking evolves and changes impetuously.
Beyond the large seizure figures that the 2020 balances reveal for the apprehensions made in 2019 (1.5 million cannabis plants, almost 38 tons of cocaine and about 350 tons of hashish) and the thousands of detainees
( 20,437 *
) for drug trafficking, the drug traffickers quickly adapt to the circumstances (including the pandemic) driven by the poly-criminality of the Eastern mafias and
the marijuana
megaboom
.
The narco becomes anonymous, flees from icons and the proper names of yesteryear with a single objective: that "the business" does not stop.
Those arrested for drug trafficking in Spain increased by 12.3% in 2019
And, in light of the data, the drug production, reception and distribution system is quite oiled, “no longer in Spain, but all over the world, this is an unfenced field that is only going to get bigger and has a complex solution, if there is a solution ”, warns the Anti-Drug Prosecutor, José Ramón Noreña, who has been the head of this area for 14 years.
Drug trafficking is neither created nor destroyed, it is only transformed: “The system is set up, Spain is a recipient (from Morocco, hashish; and from Latin America, coca) due to its geographical position and great producer of marijuana;
and it has perfect and fluid distribution channels, mainly in road transport, with trucks that carry all kinds of fruits and vegetables throughout Europe, ”says a Civil Guard commander in the fight against organized crime.
"We can dismantle stronger or smaller groups, but others will follow, who will also try to impose themselves and occupy the vacant spaces as we see in the violent confrontations between rival organizations on the Costa del Sol", analyzes a high command of the UDYCO police, Unidad of Drugs and Organized Crime of the National Police.
"The only thing we can do is prevent this system from replacing or competing with the State, as is the case in some countries like Mexico."
The latest Balance of Drug Trafficking of the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO) mainly shows the rise of what was already a trend: the spectacular increase in marijuana crops (both
indoor
and
outdoor
).
In addition, it shows a clear fluctuation in the inflow of cocaine, from the South to the North, making Galicia once again the main door for white powder that comes mostly from Brazil and Colombia.
In November 2019, the first semi-submersible in Europe was intercepted on the Galician coast with 3,000 kilos of cocaine on board, confirming a suspicion that agents who fight drug trafficking had maintained for years.
Hash traffic from Morocco remains constant, even with a slight rebound.
All this despite the Special Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar that the Ministry of the Interior launched in July 2018, in the face of the impudence and the incessant arrival of speedboats full of bundles to the beaches, in broad daylight and even in the presence of tourists.
And accompanied by insolent violence against the agents of authority.
The data reveals that now the same hashish enters or more than a year ago.
Dozens of narcolanchas are still waiting for the bad weather to clear up to load in waters near Chafarinas, and new (and old) routes to the Levant are being tested to settle through Almería and Murcia ("and even higher", police sources point out). or by the Guadalquivir river towards Huelva and the Algarve.
In the same way that other means of transport appear, with pleasure sailboats that load on the Moroccan coast and settle in any port in the South or East of the peninsula.
But if there is something that stands out this year compared to the previous ones, it is the new increase that has occurred in the traffic and cultivation of Marijuana, it is a
boom
over a
previous
boom
.
A silent drug that is already cultivated in 13 of the 17 Spanish autonomous communities, according to CITCO data.
A buoyant business, with a low risk for drug traffickers, driven above all by gangs from Eastern European countries, increasingly settled in our country.
"With the first harvest [there are three or more a year] they amortize the costs of the electrical installation of an
in-door
plantation
," police and judicial sources agree.
"They do not pay or electricity, because they are hooked to the power line," they point out.
"Spain, with a large part of it depopulated and with little surveillance, is fertile ground to hide these plantations, apart from the many industrial estates of medium-sized towns", warn the same sources.
In addition, the criminal accusation is very low: "The penalty ranges from one to three years," says Noreña, "and if you can prove that you belong to a criminal organization, it can reach four.
Perhaps it would be necessary to penalize it more ”, maintains.
And to all this is added: “The low social awareness of the serious problem that a modified drug can cause and with an increasing concentration of active principle (the one produced in Spain and sent abroad is not a soft drug) that it can lead to a pandemic but of psychotic or serious and irreparable mental disorders ”, warns Noreña.
As if that were not enough, the Police and the Civil Guard warn of the labor exploitation associated with the plantations, "most of the time taken care of by foreign people without papers in conditions of slavery."
Although hashish (first) and cocaine (second) continue to be the most trafficked drugs, Marijuana is the one that gains the most ground year after year, according to sources from the National Police and Civil Guard, because it already brings together organizations of all kinds: "From Chinese to citizens of the East, passing by nationals or British citizens", and every time it generates more violence in its environment: "Upsides [robberies between gangs], settling of accounts ...", sources from both bodies coincide.
The Green Operation, promoted at the beginning of 2019 by the National Police, was launched after verifying that many of the police coups against the cultivation of marijuana in European countries such as England, France, Holland, Italy, Portugal or Serbia, had Spain as a point starting the drug with criminals from other parts of Europe.
More than 2,000 specialized agents participated in this operation that between August 2019 and October 2020, which involved the intervention of almost half a million cannabis plants, 800 plantations, 25.6 tons and more than 7.6 million euros, in successive police actions.
In addition to an electric light fraud estimated at 7 million euros.
The great boom in the production and export of marijuana in Spain is the next great challenge in the fight against drug trafficking, experts agree.
A second internal CITCO report on the typology of organizations that are dedicated to drug trafficking to which EL PAÍS has had access alerts and “highlights the rise in groups (a total of 71) mainly dedicated to the trafficking of Marijuana in 2019, 21 more than the previous year ”.
Refuge and base of 504 international organizations
The large numbers of seizures and arrests do not usually show, however, the characteristics of drug trafficking organizations dedicated to drug trafficking that operate in this lucrative illicit business.
It is estimated that it amasses 6,000 million euros a year in Spain (0.5% of GDP), according to data from the Ministry of the Interior, and that it spreads its powerful tentacles around half the world.
Despite the increase in the number of arrests, the number of groups settled in our country and dedicated to drug trafficking has not stopped growing.
According to CITCO data, there were 504 in total in 2019, 4% more than the previous year.
Of these, 109 are mainly dedicated to cocaine trafficking, according to the heads of that intelligence center.
The CITCO report goes further and turns Malaga into the logistics center for drug trafficking: “Regarding the territorial extension of the groups, it is worth highlighting Malaga, which, following the trend, is positioned as one of the main provinces where it operates the most. The orginazed crime".
And he adds: “Similarly, the provinces of the Levante and Cádiz area, which have a seaport, as well as Seville, with its river port, as they are important logistics and communication centers, are strategic points for entry into our country of narcotic substances, mainly in containers ”.
The Costa del Sol is the point where most of the drug arrives and from where everything is distributed.
"The same as we send tomatoes to Europe, we send anything," an investigator from the Civil Guard ironizes to explain the formula most used by organizations to move their merchandise.
"Rotten society"
It has nothing to do with what happens in La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz), where they are mere receivers and transporters of hashish, but where the problem is more serious (if possible) because the drug money, settled on the old channels of smuggling, it has pierced the whole of society.
"In a society with 30% unemployment, perhaps even more among young people, a boy earns a thousand euros just for notifying if the police are coming, 3,000 for unloading bales from a boat on the beach, and 30,000 for transporting drugs" warns a chief inspector of the GRECO (Special Response Groups for Organized Crime) unit of the National Police with years chasing drug traffickers in that area.
"Convince them now to dedicate themselves to something else," he ironizes.
"The Special Plan arrives very late, what is needed is a Comprehensive Plan," says the same agent.
“What we cannot allow to happen has happened: the economic engine of that society, the money that reaches the banks, companies, large and small businesses, comes largely from drug trafficking, it is a rotten society at that time. sense ”, points out another researcher from the Civil Guard.
The CITCO internal report on drug trafficking organizations also analyzes them by nationality of those investigated: “Spaniards stand out in cocaine and hashish, followed by Moroccans and Colombians.
Chinese citizens are implicated in the marijuana trade, although this year they have fallen considerably in favor of other groups, such as the British, Lithuanians and Poles ”.
According to police experts, violence from other groups has driven groups of Chinese who had been involved in marijuana production in past years to flee.
“It is significant in the increase in arrests (they have grown by 12% compared to the previous year): those of Moroccans, mainly dedicated to the trafficking of hashish and as a result of the police actions carried out in the Campo de Gibraltar and adjacent areas;
those of Colombians, whose main criminal activity is cocaine trafficking.
And those of Albanians are quadrupled, dedicated among other illicit activities to the trafficking of marijuana ", includes the CITCO report.
"But it is useless to make detainees if the judicial system is incapable of assuming them," says a Civil Guard command.
Justice is blocked and the sense of impunity for these crimes is enormous, drug traffickers begin to enter prison after 30 years and many have their
companies
so oiled
that "they continue to operate behind bars and are released with bail that they pay with the money from drug trafficking, "he warns.
"The masters of the show are now the Dutch, Swedes and Belgians of Maghreb origin, they are the ones who move a large part of the business on a European scale after achieving control of the main port areas," says another high command of the UDYCO central.
"And then we have the carriers / distributors / bleaches of the Eastern bands, mainly Serbs and Russians, who have settled in Valencia and Alicante and with connections on the Costa del Sol", he specified.
"And some Asians in Catalonia, moving heroin and growing large tracts of cannabis plantations," he adds.
A whole melting pot of criminal organizations dividing the Spanish territory like a cake.
By territories
Spain is a suitable territory for drug trafficking due to its geographical position, its proximity to Morocco and its many large ports of entry to Europe (Algeciras, Barcelona, Valencia).
Also because of the historical tradition of smuggling in Campo de Gibraltar and Galicia, because of the anonymity offered by tourist areas such as the Costa del Sol or the Levante and because of the infrastructure (connections and unloading and transport capacity) existing in Andalusia (Huerta de Europa ).
If to that are added the enormous extensions of land of the unprotected emptied Spain and the many industrial warehouses of the belts of many towns, the equation is completed with the unprecedented boom of marijuana plantations, which this last year have beaten their own records.
The drug trafficker also demarcates its territory, although it is increasingly covered by an aura of anonymity.
“If you ask me what now characterizes the narco in Galicia, I would tell you that discretion;
in Catalonia, the cosmopolitan fabric;
Levante is the drug's "plan B";
the Costa del Sol is the logistics platform;
and the Campo de Gibraltar is the “ground zero”, sums up a Civil Guard command of the fight against organized crime.
"Now, in front of the popularity of the drug traffickers of other times (
Sito Miñanco
, Laureano Oubiña or the
Pastelero
in Galicia; or the
Castaña
,
Messi
or
Tomato
in the South) the low profile is carried, although they use its infrastructures", insists a commissioner of the central UDYCO.
"Giving the note makes them an easy target, as has happened in the Campo de Gibraltar: political and police efforts have focused there, but the narco works like communicating vessels, you squeeze at one point and go to the other."
Galicia No proper names in the coca business Elisa Lois Pontevedra
Members of the Civil Guard refloat the 'narco-submarine' seized in Galician waters.
AFP
Galician drug trafficking is headless.
There are no more clans or charismatic leaders who were the owners of the drug that began to enter Galicia from tobacco smuggling four decades ago.
The pyramid scheme of the historic organizations that opened the Colombian cocaine market to Europe has slowly collapsed until it practically disappeared, giving way to small and resilient groups that offer their maritime infrastructure and knowledge of the environment as service companies for the transport of goods. stash.
However, Galicia is once again, according to the latest data from the Ministry of the Interior, the
main gateway *
for cocaine in Spain.
In 2019, 7,642 kilos were seized, an amount nine times higher than the 824 kilos of the previous year
In the globalized cocaine traffic, powerful Eastern European mafias, very experienced and violent, now command, operating with networks in North Africa for the storage and shipment of cargo, and with others based in Belgium and the Netherlands that are responsible for their distribution .
They are the heirs of the historic Galician drug lords who came to operate as authentic cartels from the old continent, emulating their suppliers and powerful Colombian drug lords from Cali and Medellín.
These Balkan groups have been able to take advantage of the vacuum left by the daring leaders, some still incarcerated, others already aged, or those who remain absent due to the media wear and tear of criminal activity.
And although Galicia continues to be a drain of caches, the profile of the new Galician narco, almost anonymous and secondary in the current scheme of the cocaine market, is an x-ray of the weight that it has lost in the
international drug trafficking
establishment
where the economic potential and minimal risk for stash are the bargaining chip in this business.
These emerging mafias, according to Europol, are on the cusp of organized crime.
They are multifaceted and although they lack specialization in drug transportation, they count on the Galician boatmen to transport the drug to Galicia and have their own representatives in South America to negotiate the direct purchase of cocaine, just as the historic drug traffickers did. Galicians.
Their great strategy is the logistics chains they use to introduce drugs, which are also used to traffic in clothes or weapons, for example, but gambling, gambling, money laundering, real estate, prostitution or illegal immigration are other aspects.
"We are facing another dimension of crime and in Galicia nothing works as before," says Vigo judge Juan Carlos Carballal.
He knows the ins and outs of some police operations that he directed against known traffickers and affirms that these Eastern mafias are installed not only in Galicia, but also in Andalusia and throughout Europe.
“They have an impressive structure, difficult to control in the immensity of the ocean and due to the intense traffic in the ports, and they do not intend to compete with the South American cartels but to cooperate with them.
An emporium before which the Galicians can make a download on commission, but nothing more ”, explains the magistrate.
We are facing another dimension of crime and in Galicia nothing works as before
Juan Carlos Carballal, judge
Faced with the drop in the number of caches seizures in Galicia compared to the great wave of the past decade, the shipments that are now intercepted are increasingly voluminous and the purity of cocaine much higher, coinciding with the surplus stocks of this substance in Colombia, the main supplier.
The constant movement of merchandise was evident during the confinement by Covid-19, when in two consecutive operations more than seven tons were seized on the Galician coast.
"This has been a surprise and it has also been found that the traffickers have recovered the old methods of transporting and disembarking drugs," says Tomás García, head of the Organic Unit of the Pontevedra Judicial Police.
"The profile of the new narco is his experience and specialty as a cargo carrier and receptionist, including the manufacture of boats in his own shipyards," adds the captain, who also warns of the technologies on the rise, such as the encrypted telephone networks used by the new mafias to operate and that makes it impossible to identify the lines and servers.
"Pontevedra and Algeciras are the two hot spots for drug trafficking in Spain," he stresses.
While Europe consumes purer cocaine and Latin America produces even more, the future passes through the use of digital technologies in the drug market and the improvement of some maritime resources such as the submarine.
In fact, the commissioner of the Central Narcotics Brigade, Antonio Duarte, believes that the police operation of December 2019, which allowed the capture of 3,000 kilos of cocaine in a semi-submersible in the Rías Baixas “has not been the first nor will it be the last ”.
They even believe that this method is used a couple of times a year and they have been perfecting it.
For Duarte "the Galician trafficker has lost weight but not the drug trafficking in Galicia, which is still very much alive."
"They are more boatmen than ever, they do what they know how to do and although they have had many falls, they always fix it with another operation."
He points out that there are still two groups with the capacity to operate at any time, and that although the transport in fishing vessels has declined, the traffic in containers and merchants has recovered, the latter almost overwhelming.
Galicia is one of the paradigms of the constant change and evolution of increasingly powerful organized crime organizations thanks to globalization, which has allowed them to better manage local markets at strategic points.
Experts estimate that only 10% of shipments in transit are captured and only in the Galician Community seizures increased in 2019 by 827% compared to the previous year, while the price of a kilogram of cocaine practically remains at 30,000 euros in the black market.
In 2020, 10 tons were seized in Galician territory.
The Pontevedra drug prosecutor Pablo Varela describes the changes in drug trafficking derived from the evolution of the international drug market itself, and points to the Galician branch as an essential element in this global system that has further strengthened the drug business.
"Organized crime advances the same as society, and Galician organizations are no longer the same," he says.
"Now they contribute their main asset, which is transportation, to the new globalization scheme, in which more connected mafias share market heights, distribution channels and new telematic tools," he stresses.
Catalonia Great nursery for Marijuana Rebeca Carranco Barcelona
Marijuana plantation discovered by the Mossos d'Esquadra.
Catalonia is Europe's great nursery for marijuana.
“It is your Silicon Valley.
There is permanent innovation, fairs, which are now held virtually ... It is a brutal specialization at an economic level, and cannabis associations are a huge cover to be able to have cultivation and sales dynamics behind, ”explains the mayor of the Mossos d'Esquadra , Deputy Chief of the General Criminal Investigation Commission, Toni Rodríguez.
Drugs have become the main headache of the Catalan police, who have produced an extensive report on the risks of marijuana trafficking, with wide social acceptance, and the danger of creating a criminal economy, outside the regular, similar to the one in force in the Campo de Gibraltar.
“70% of organized crime is also dedicated to marijuana.
House robbery organizations invest part of their efforts in this drug to maximize its criminal performance ”, exemplifies Rodríguez, who assures that the plant has“ usurped the market ”of other narcotic substances.
There is no police operation, of any kind, in which the Mossos do not find marijuana.
For eight years, it has been the most seized drug in Catalonia;
Ten years ago, Rodríguez says, its implementation was almost anecdotal, in a market that dominated hashish.
Catalonia was the autonomous community in Spain with the most apprehensions of this drug (12,398 kilos, followed by 9,565 in Andalusia and 4,694 in the Valencian Community) in 2018, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior compiled by the Mossos.
Its popularity has also led to an increase in violence.
Since 2016, the Catalan police have counted 11 homicides due to
rollovers
(robbery between traffickers) and conflicts over their control.
One of the last episodes occurred on December 12, when two clans were shot dead in the border area between Barcelona and the Mina neighborhood (Sant Adrià de Besòs).
In the building where the shots supposedly came from - for now there are no injuries - the Catalan police found a crop with 400 plants.
70% of organized crime is also dedicated to marijuana
Toni Rodríguez, mayor of the Mossos d'Esquadra
In six years, the Mossos have dismantled 150 criminal networks, made up of people of various nationalities, each working drugs in their own way, and even collaborating with each other and creating hybrid organizations.
They define a “mosaic” market, where despite the occasional violence, all the mafias can coexist thanks to the balance between demand and supply.
The fear, they indicate, is that the wheel will stop and start a war between them.
They also warn of two phenomena that they have encountered this last year: people with no legal business background who decide to dedicate themselves to marijuana, after going through financial problems.
It happened in the Neretva case, where several indigenous families from the Vallès area of Barcelona were arrested, who discussed their businesses in places like Celler de Can Roca.
And another, corruption.
Also this year, the Catalan police have arrested three
mossos
accused of being part of a marijuana trafficking plot.
The agents were in preventive detention for a month and a half.
The success of marijuana grows parallel to the rest of drugs.
Cocaine continues to enter mainly through the port of Barcelona, or by land, hidden in cove (hideouts) inside vehicles.
It is a more complicated drug to work with than marijuana.
"You need external contacts, trust and depend on them, pay a commission for transportation ...", summarizes Rodríguez.
"At most, one can find termination laboratories here, small kitchens to finish the cocaine that arrives before it is hydrochloride," explains the mayor, who assures that there is no great specialization.
The drug continues to be in the hands of indigenous clans and some organizations that were small have also been dismantled.
The last trafficker with direct communication with Colombia and a real capacity to negotiate with the cartels at source, Juan Carlos D., was arrested in 2016, accused of introducing more than 300 kilos.
It is not the largest amount of this drug intervened by the Catalan police (they found 1,400 kilos in a warehouse in November 2018), but if the man with the greatest capacity to move it, according to police sources.
The Port of Barcelona has evolved, with strict access controls, better technical and video surveillance systems, where it is recorded who enters and who leaves.
“In the movement of goods, there is no longer a guard at the door who asks for your documentation.
It is a system that reads the license plate, verifies that everything is ok, and raises the barrier or not ”, explain Customs Surveillance sources.
Before, they say, a person could enter or exit more easily with some backpacks loaded with drugs that were in a container.
That transit has been complicated.
Now it is necessary to move the containers without leaving a trace on the computer system.
In 2019, the National Police and Customs Surveillance arrested two computer scientists accused of tampering with the system to allow two carriers to remove pregnant drug containers and return them to the port without leaving a trace.
In total, that investigation involved more than 5,000 kilos of cocaine.
But far from reducing the amount of drugs with technical improvements, the amounts intervened in the port have increased.
"They are no longer backpacks, now you have to risk removing the entire container, so they fill it more," conclude police sources.
"There is almost nothing less than 1,000 kilos in
ripoff
", they add, referring to the method of the lost hook: placing drugs in containers of legal merchandise, without the owners knowing.
And they underline that this trend has been the case for at least three years.
They have also detected cases in which an attempt is made to remove the drug from the ship before it unloads the containers.
Cocaine is the drug par excellence in the port, although they have also found some cases of marijuana export, and, more exceptionally, some of the importation of the plant from the United States and Mexico.
Heroin remains stable, with a consumption base associated with marginalization.
It is sold mainly in the center of Barcelona, in the El Raval neighborhood -where since 2018 there have been three macro-operations against retail-, and in traditional markets such as La Mina (Sant Adrià de Besós), La Font de la Pólvora (Girona), Sant Cosme (El Prat de Llobregat), Bon Pastor (Barcelona), Marca de l'Ham (Figueres), among others.
"A little over a year ago, it seemed that their consumption had increased, but we did not find data to objectify that perception," says Mossos mayor Toni Rodríguez, neither of the venipuncture rooms nor of his own operations.
A separate chapter deserves La Jonquera (Girona), the border of Catalonia with France.
"We are studying the trace of crime in the border areas and how they modify them," says the head of the Mossos, who affirms that criminal activity "socio-economically conditions" the place.
"It is not an area of large nurseries [places to hide drugs], it is a continuous step, of businesses and traps," Rodríguez analyzes.
The Mossos are still "weaving knowledge" of how the various criminal organizations are formed on the border.
Raise The 'Plan B' of the Narco PATRICIA ORTEGA DOLZ Madrid
UDYCO and UCO agents show seized merchandise in the port of Valencia.
EFE
Drug trafficking works as if they were communicating vessels.
"When you press on one side, it moves to the other," describes a commissioner from UDYCO, the Drugs and Organized Crime Unit of the National Police.
Pressure in the South (Costa del Sol and Campo de Gibraltar), with the Special Plan launched by the Ministry of the Interior in July 2018 to combat drug trafficking, has caused organizations to search for new routes to the area. del Levante: Almería, Murcia and Valencia, mainly, thus becoming the “Plan B of drug traffickers”, in the words of a Civil Guard command dedicated to the fight against organized crime.
"We are detecting that groups that traditionally operated in the South are using local organizations, which have infrastructure in this area, especially in Murcia, to put hashish," says an agent from GRECO Levante (Special Response Groups for the Organized crime).
In 2020, 13 high-speed boats have intervened in this area, when "the normal is three or four," he points out.
The agents have verified that the drug traffickers use cranes in the marinas to put the boats in the water, "something they used to do in the Campo de Gibraltar and Malaga area," he says.
“Now comes a truck covered with a tarpaulin on which a three or four-engined zodiac goes, with the GPS, the wet suits and the 5,000 liters of gasoline they need to get to Morocco, they arrive at a port, connivance of an operator) they throw the boat into the sea with the crane, and go out to load the hashish on the Moroccan coast;
they refuel there again, come back and settle on any beach in this area ”, explains the agent.
In 2020, 11 organizations of this type made up of Moroccans and Spaniards have dismantled.
Valencia, with a large port that supports - such as Algeciras - large shipments of cocaine hidden in containers of fruit and products from Latin America, along with the 275 kilometers of the Murcian coast, are the main routes of entry for drugs. as reflected in the balance data of the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO).
In the Valencian community in 2019 3,000 kilos of cocaine were seized, but in a single recent operation, in June 2020, the police seized 4,000 kilos of white powder hidden between sacks of sugar and pineapple pulp from Panama and Colombia.
The investigation, which resulted in 11 detainees (including from the Dutch to a citizen of the Ivory Coast) involved several Spanish truckers with authorized access to the port.
In Murcia, 149 kilos of cocaine were seized in 2019, compared to the 20 kilos seized the previous year (646% more) and more than 17 tons of hashish, and there was
an exponential increase (155%) *
in marijuana plantations.
2,086 kilos were requisitioned and 32,750 plants were dismantled
The Levante coast has become a kind of refuge for drug trafficking organizations encouraged by the security forces on the Costa del Sol and Campo de Gibraltar.
There are towns in which the bosses of these mafias go equally unnoticed, due to the large number of tourists and foreigners who inhabit them.
They settle there knowing that there are cities and ports with important and good connections with the rest of Spain and Europe, perfectly usable for the transport and distribution of their illicit merchandise.
Drugs and Weapons
On one side are the members of the Eastern gangs (Albanians and Kosovars), with strong roots in the Marina Alta area (Alicante) and mainly dedicated to the cocaine and marijuana trafficking, in addition to the arms trafficking "which has tripled in recent years ”, warns a National Police investigator who works in the area.
"In the last three years we have intervened more than 60 weapons, including rifles, kalashnikovs and machine guns, the situation is getting tough around here," he warns.
"Organized crime advances and makes its workforce grow, ours have been the same or worse for 20 years," say sources from the armed institute.
"We have a notable increase in Lithuanian and Polish citizens dedicated to marijuana trafficking", warns another researcher from UDYCO-Alicante.
"And the French mafia (not all of Moroccan origin) dedicated mainly to
hashish
go fast
: they alike on the beaches of Murcia and Almería and send it to France directly and quickly in jeeps", he describes.
In the last three years we have intervened more than 60 weapons, among which there are rifles, kalashnikovs and machine guns, the situation is getting tough around here
Investigator of the National Police
The Levantine coast is ideal for the money laundering of some of the organized crime bosses, mostly from Eastern European countries.
Proof of this is one of the largest operations against the Russian mafia carried out a few weeks ago in Alicante and Benidorm, in which more than 20 people were arrested, including two security councilors of the Popular Party (the current Benidorm , Lorenzo Martínez, and the former from Altea, Jaime Sellés), a police inspector and two civil guards.
The investigation remains open.
"Here they have less pressure and the living conditions are very similar to those of the Costa del Sol, a good standard of living, business ease, international schools for their children ...", explains the GRECO-Levante researcher.
He assures that they have recently noticed the presence of British organizations, "settled mainly in Alicante and dedicated to the acquisition and transport of Marijuana to the United Kingdom, where its price is six times higher," he says.
And it highlights the violence of the "Swedish criminal colonies" settled in and around Altea and dedicated to overturning (theft of merchandise between gangs) and extortion.
More violence
The increase in violence is remarkable.
The rivalry between the organizations is very great.
"In the middle of last December they murdered an Albanian citizen in a restaurant, five shots," he recalls.
"He had been arrested for drug and arms trafficking only a year ago and worked a lot with the British," says the GRECO-Levante agent.
"But the great danger of the mafias is that they manage to pierce the institutions," says a member of the Technical Unit of the Judicial Police of the General Directorate of the Civil Guard.
“Fortunately, corruption in Spain is punctual, there is still a noble democratic conscience and the system still has tools to be relentless with bad apples, but we must be aware that a single case can do a lot of damage and destroy years of investigation ”, He warns.
In the operation against the Russian mafia in Alicante, the leaks forced the investigations to stop up to three times and delayed the arrests of those investigated for years, say the investigators of the National Police.
Sources from the armed institute assure that large-scale drug trafficking works through large money investors who finance shipments and take significant percentages of the profit obtained without ever approaching the drug.
"The normal thing is to never reach them," they say.
The relevance of the latest operation against the Russian mafia consisted in that: big businessmen fell, sheltered by all their real estate, leisure businesses and luxury lives.
Costa del Sol The logistics center of the narco Nacho Sánchez Málaga
Effects intervened by the National Police in operations in Malaga.
Barely 20 kilometers from the Malaga coastline accumulate more than a hundred groups of drug traffickers of multiple nationalities, who enjoy the climate and luxury of the area, but also its well-oiled mechanisms to acquire, store and distribute drugs throughout Europe.
"Nowhere else in the world do you find, in such a small territory, so many people dedicated to the same thing and with such intensity."
The words belong to a police officer who has settled on the Costa del Sol for years. The activity he is talking about is none other than organized crime, whose actors have found the place in the triangle that makes up the towns of Estepona, Marbella and Benahavís. ideal for camouflage and operation.
Its more than 25 kilometers of coastline and urbanizations between hills are a large drug market that supplies all of Europe.
Hash is the main protagonist, but those who introduce cocaine through the port of Algeciras and those who distribute marijuana to northern countries also settle in the area.
An extremely lucrative business that attracts mafias and groups from almost anywhere in the world and whose consequences are seen periodically: shootings in the street, executions with weapons of war, hitmen, explosions, kidnappings, corpses in gutters.
"This is a tinderbox ,
" says the same policeman, who directed operations against the Chestnut,
the
Messi
of Hashish, self Sito Miñanco or group of Dutch people who in 2018 was seized six are tons of cocaine in Malaga.
International organized crime loves the Costa del Sol. Beach, good weather, good communications and a lot of luxury to show off and enjoy your money.
"Why live in a La Línea neighborhood, being able to have a large luxury villa in Marbella and, furthermore, go unnoticed", says another agent.
To this must be added the proximity of Morocco, Algeciras and Gibraltar, key points for the entry of drugs and money laundering, as well as the ease of finding the necessary infrastructure for drug trafficking: from gangs specialized in car theft to murderers to salary.
Cocaine and marijuana on the rise
These characteristics have facilitated the constant arrival of criminals: according to the Ministry of the Interior, of the 73 organized crime groups based in Malaga in 2012, it has risen to 113 in 2018, the latest data available.
Half of them are dedicated to hashish, which they usually bring in narco-boats from the Moroccan coast and then send it in high-end vehicles to northern Europe, although also hidden among other merchandise.
Cocaine, however, moves more and more money and marijuana maintains an exponential growth: between 2018 and 2019, five tons were intervened in this province, according to data from the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO).
"Derived from all these types of crime, in which so much money moves, violence arises between organizations", points out the memory of the Prosecutor's Office of Andalusia in 2020.
Malaga is not only a large market where you can buy and sell drugs, it is also a warehouse from which to distribute throughout Europe.
Gangs, like large multinational companies, diversify their activity to increase revenue and divide risks.
The area is now also one of the main marijuana producers thanks to
indoor
cultivation
in chalets, greenhouses, industrial warehouses or farms in the countryside.
Also occupied floors, such as the 21 dismantled last November by 300 agents in Rincón de la Victoria in the so-called Gentleman operation.
There are those who send the drug by post or hidden among ornamental pieces.
Others only go to Malaga to buy buds and transport them in trucks, as did a German gang that recently acquired 110 kilos of marijuana and 20 tons of garlic to hide it.
"It is a very profitable business", insist from the Organized Crime Team (EDOA) of the Civil Guard.
The investment is minimal, the profit is huge.
A kilo of
maría
in Andalusia costs about 1,700 euros compared to 6,500 in Germany.
In Sweden it exceeds 9,000 euros.
Movie scenes
The photographs with which the National Police works internally show parties in luxury villas, cars worth more than a million euros, large state-of-the-art surveillance systems and security members loaded with hand grenades, submachine guns or silenced pistols .
The scenes look like something out of movies.
Those who star in them stroll their luxury through the big clubs in Puerto Banús, go to gyms and accumulate possessions, but they have never certified their registration with Social Security.
And his pawns also get a lot of profitability.
In any cache of hashish on the Malaga coastline, you can earn 1,000 euros just for being alert and notifying if the police forces appear, 3,000 for unloading bales and 30,000 for driving an SUV loaded with drugs to the nursery where it hides while its owners arrive.
They are the first to fall into the operations that take place practically on a daily basis on this stretch of coast.
One example is enough: in only four operations last September, three tons of hashish were seized on the Malaga coast and 36 people were arrested.
The capos falling is thornier.
"It is complex to prove their crimes and, in addition, we have
hyper-guaranteed
legislation
that makes our work very difficult," complains a policeman, who believes that the support of judges and prosecutors is "essential" to be successful against organized crime.
Proving their crimes is complex and, in addition, we have hyper-guaranteed legislation that makes our work very difficult
The seizures of hashish are the most numerous in Malaga: between 2018 and 2019 131 tons of this substance were intervened, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
"But the main course is cocaine, it is what generates the most money," says a policeman, who during confinement discovered 1,500 kilos of this substance in an apartment on the Costa del Sol.
This drug is usually at the origin of the account adjustments that occurred in this area and published by the media.
A hoax, a scam or a turnaround - theft between organizations - are the main triggers for these executions.
Drugs, on the other hand, are a crime that does not generate much social alarm.
You don't even perceive fear in Malaga when blood runs through its streets.
The reason is that the civilian population is rarely affected.
The last stray bullet killed a boy and a man in 2004. But in recent months several people have been injured as drug traffickers hit them with their cars while fleeing the police.
An escalation of violence that the security forces themselves have suffered in the first person.
"Now you see more weapons than ever," underlines a Civil Guard stationed in Fuengirola.
One of the groups that has left the most recent mark in this area is that of the Swedes, made up of young murderers who imposed terror in 2018. Amir Mekky was one of its members.
In May 2018, he murdered David Ávila, alias
Maradona
, when he was leaving his son's communion in a church in Marbella.
Three months later, Mekky dumped a full magazine on Sofian Mohamed, alias
el Zacato
, in front of his luxury villa in Estepona.
"We have never seen such a violent group," they reported then in the Unit against Delinquency and Organized Crime of the National Police (UDYCO), where last January an exclusive working group was created to resolve account adjustments.
A melting pot of nationalities
Sometimes, Malaga is only the scene of wars between mafias that operate in other countries, such as the one waged by the Kinahan, Irish who were linked to a dozen murders, three of them in Malaga.
The nationalities of the drug traffickers are very diverse: Spanish, Dutch, Belgian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Russian, Moroccan, Italian, Serbian, Croatian, Irish, Colombian ... "We have the best of each house", concludes, ironically, a member of the Special Response Group to Organized Crime (GRECO) on the Malaga coast.
Cádiz Ground Zero: Alijar hashish against wind, tide and arrests Jesús A. Cañas Cádiz
Two Customs Surveillance agents move part of the bales carried by a sailboat docked in Algeciras.
ANDRES CARRASCO
Since the powerful Isco Tejón, alias Castaña, starred in a reggaeton video clip while he was the most wanted narco in Spain to his present as a prisoner awaiting trial, only two years have passed.
But that time seems like an eternity in the hashish underworlds of the Strait of Gibraltar, where all its actors are used to living fast, spending in lawlessness and ending up in prison even in their thirties.
Although Isco and his brother Antonio are not just any traffickers, for quantitative purposes they are part of the bulky list of some 2,000 detainees involved in drug trafficking that the Campo de Gibraltar has already added since a Special Security Plan was created in July 2018 for an area. which is the main entry point for hashish in Spain and Europe.
The rise to glory and the fall to prison of the
Castaña
well illustrates the recent history of drug trafficking in the province of Cádiz, hit by an endemic strike that, before the covid era, was already moving at levels of 30%.
In the midst of this context of lack of opportunities, two young people from the La Línea de la Concepción neighborhood saw the sweet opportunity to take advantage of the area's historical tradition of smuggling to bring bundles of hashish from Morocco, through a strait, the Gibraltar, which has invariable geographical and socio-economic conditions.
Aboard powerful
narcolanchas
, in fishing or pleasure boats, drugs have been flowing through the coasts of Cádiz for decades.
All that deployment has turned into hefty arrest statistics.
Since 2018, the special security plan for the Strait has added more than 9,300 detainees in different Andalusian provinces - 2,000 of them only in the Campo de Gibraltar - and 20 million euros of investment, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
In 2019, the number of detainees in anti-drug operations in the province of Cádiz rose to 1,523, according to estimates from the Memory of the Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office in the area.
They fell in the
47 operations initiated *
or in the 1,088 drug trafficking offenses (38% more than in 2019) discovered throughout the province.
OCON Sur - the unit created in the Civil Guard to fight drug trafficking in southern Spain - closed 2019 with a seizure of 176,455 kilos of hashish and 4,341 kilos of cocaine
In the heat of what it means to pass drugs through one of the critical points of their trip through Spain and Europe, they have carved out big names —or rather, nicknames— and fortunes such as
Los Castaña
;
Abdellah El Haj Sadek,
El Messi
;
Kiko
The Strong
;
Antonio Romero,
El Tomate
... They are all now in prison or on the run from justice - like
El Messi
- although that does not mean that drug trafficking has disappeared from the area.
“The
clubs
are hurting them, but there is still activity.
What there is now is less impudence than we were accustomed to, "says Francisco Mena, president of the Nexos anti-drug federation.
Both he and the police unions have always considered that, in the Straits alone, there were 30 hashish family clans operating, capable of employing some 3,000 families.
Now, seeing the number of detainees, Mena doubts if they fall "short".
The clubs are hurting them, but there is still activity.
What there is now is less cheek
Francisco Mena, president of the Nexos anti-drug federation
In his forward flight, pursued by police reinforcements, the drug trafficker has explored new avenues of entry for drugs.
“In the 1990s, La Línea was already taken over by the police for a year and [the traffickers] went to Barbate.
When they pressed in Barbate, they shot for Sanlúcar [from Barrameda] and then they returned to Campo de Gibraltar ”, explains an investigator.
Now they are dispersing again through those areas traveled in the past and other parts of Andalusia, such as the coasts of Granada, Almería and the Levante.
In each of its classic zones of influence, each with its own
narco-idiosyncrasy
, the same pattern is repeated: small clans, usually family members, who associate with each other to become transporters of hashish.
"They work like cooperatives to get ahead," says an agent specialized in the fight against drug trafficking.
More violence
What increasingly surprises the agents is their ability to scale more and more their levels of violence.
Until this past November, the National Police and the Civil Guard did not manage to completely dismantle the 11 members of two mafias from Cádiz and Madrid that were associated to smother hashish across the Straits and make it reach Italy.
It would be one of many operations if it weren't for the fact that the Madrilenians ended up hiring five French hitmen to settle scores with the Cadiz people: three of them ended up tortured and thrown in the middle of a highway in September 2019, one of them stabbed and already dead .
The Narco del Estrecho is no longer in the mood to show off with video clips, opulent parties, big cars or expensive brand clothes.
Overwhelmed, the suspects have returned to the old ways of attacking the agents that made them famous at the beginning of 2018. In just a few weeks in September, the civil guards and police in Cádiz detected dozens of attacks: from getting involved with shotguns in Bornos - in this case, of marijuana traffickers - against civil guards to carry out a violent attack on an agent in Campo de Gibraltar.
A civil guard in this region attributes this peak of violence to Antonio Tejón being released from prison for a few days due to a judicial error: “The order to attack the shuttle vehicle while the car behind leaves by legs loaded with drugs is his hallmark.
And it was what he made clear in a meeting with his people when he told them that the lost money had to be recovered ”.
Because that, the money lost, is why the organizations in Cádiz lose their nerves more and more.
Day in and day out, the agents deal hard blows against the money laundering schemes associated with hashish.
Like the one that involved Trini a civil guard from Algeciras in charge of listening to drug traffickers, and his girlfriend, manager of a car workshop, in a network that laundered at least 2.2 million euros for Antonio
El Castaña
.
In each money laundering operation, an average of 20 or 30 people are arrested, many of them relatives of the leaders.
"They are fathers, mothers, brothers who are not linked to drugs, but have been carried away with properties in their name and these are the consequences," says a civil guard.
In order to carry out these coups, the reinforcements or creation of new units specialized in laundering in the bodies of the area have been key.
This is how the National Police of La Línea in October managed to thwart a drug trafficking of 50,000 square meters in which 40 detainees had laundered 2.5 million euros in luxurious illegal villas.
The Plug of Justice
But so much investigation threatens to create collateral damage: Justice, now the protagonist of the next chapter in the drug trafficking of Cadiz.
"The increase in police media has not been in step with ours," says Ana Villagómez, anti-drug prosecutor in Andalusia.
Macrocauses now saturate the Magistrate's Courts of Campo de Gibraltar to the point that only the five in Algeciras now accumulate an average of 50 pre-trial prisoners each.
Although the headquarters were increased, the lack of personnel is still evident and the causes in the epicenter of hashish in Spain run the risk of being affected by delays of years that feed the feeling of impunity for the drug traffickers.
Meanwhile, the architects of the business do what they can to continue their portfolios from prison.
Against all odds, life in the narco runs its course.
Although, one day, the cases for which they went to jail will go to court.
And then, Villagomez already advances what will happen: “Although the causes take time, they are judged.
They will not go unpunished ”.
Credits
Coordination: Brenda Valverde and Alberto Quero
Art direction: Fernando Hernández
Design: Ruth Benito
Layout: Alejandro Gallardo