Dismantled a hash route to the west of Almeria

The drug clans operate like water in a leaky balloon. If one of the holes is plugged to contain it, the pressure immediately causes it to escape through another. This is the case in Andalusia, where the police presence exerted on drug traffickers in Campo de Gibraltar (Cádiz) has forced them to seek or reactivate other routes to introduce hashish from Morocco, such as Huelva or Almería. This province has been the scene of the last macrooperation against marijuana trafficking on an international scale, which has been open since the early hours of the morning of this Wednesday, and which, so far, has resulted in seven detainees and 800 kilos of hashish seized.

The organization transported drugs from the Moroccan coast to Almeria by means of semi-rigid boats and recreational boats. In the operation, 150 Civil Guard agents belonging to the bodies of OCON Sur, Rapid Action Group, Reserve and Security and the Commandery of Almería have intervened, who have registered eight properties in different municipalities of western Almeria, including a club of hostess in El Ejido, and a hidden farmhouse between greenhouses, in Berja.

The clans that operate in the province of Almería have chosen the region of Poniente as their center of operations. Civil Guard sources acknowledge that there have always been organizations dedicated to drugs on the Almeria coast, but that pressure in the Campo de Gibraltar has increased their number, forcing many to leave the Strait and regain other abandoned territories. However, they point out, they have not yet developed the degree of sophistication, coordination, structures or means of the Cádiz drug traffickers.

Neither had the dismantled group succeeded in this latest operation, dubbed Cabana. Its organization was still incipient and although it operated on an international scale, according to the sources consulted, its dangerousness or importance is far from the clans dismantled in the last blows to the drug by the State Security Forces and Bodies in Almería. At the beginning of 2021, the Civil Guard seized almost 4,000 kilos of hashish from North Africa in Roquetas and Aguadulce, in April it dismantled the Gordos clan and seized 1.3 tons of that substance and in October it took other eight tons and detained 23 people dedicated to transporting drugs from Morocco to Granada, Almería and Murcia.

The hashish traffic introduced by the sea - as the deactivated group operated in this Wednesday's operation carried out in Vícar, Adra, El Ejido and Berja - is endemic to the entire Andalusian coast, in addition to Seville, according to the latest Memory of the Prosecutor's Office. This is one of the most widespread crimes and the one that generates the greatest workload among drug prosecutors, according to that report. Since the launch in 2018 of the Carteia Plan to stop the expansion of the drug traffickers that roam freely in the Campo de Gibraltar, 567,000 kilos of hashish, 22,125 kilos of cocaine and 145,000 cannabis plants have been intervened in this territory, 7% of the total in Almería. The greenhouses have also served to camouflage and extend the cultivation of cannabis on the mainland of that province. Throughout 2021,The armed institute seized 630,000 marijuana plants in this territory, almost 20 times more than the previous year.

In the operation this Wednesday that is still open and is under summary secrecy, in addition to the seven arrests - all Spanish citizens, according to the sources consulted - and the 800 kilos of hashish, the Civil Guard has seized three semi-rigid boats fast, documentation, electronic and communication material and 35,000 euros in cash.