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The top 10 of the narcos of the Strait, from success to regret

2022-03-05T22:44:21.198Z


Problems are piling up for the main hashish kingpins in Cádiz: they are detained, escaped or awaiting trial


There was a time not so long ago when the mafias of the Strait of Gibraltar, swollen with success and money, only competed to see which stretch of coast belonged to them or which extravagance was more eccentric.

That golden past, which had its zenith in 2018, seems very different from these days in which the gangs —with their shrill exceptions— only seem to be concerned with preparing their defense strategy against the macro-juices that come upon them.

And for continuing to lighten, but with unusual "discretion" in them, as an agent of the Civil Guard in the area believes, involved for years in uncovering their excesses.

The tables of the prosecutors of Cádiz are full of volumes of complex police investigations that entangle the main drug dealers in the area.

There are detainees and in prison -provisional or with firm sentences-, released waiting to sit on a bench or escaped.

Many of them have seen their lives turn from supposed successes into regrets for displaying their luxuries without shame.

"By the mouth dies the fish.

If they do not do that, it seems that they are not carried out, ”says the Andalusian anti-drug prosecutor, Ana Villagómez.

This is a list of the ten best known.

Supposedly they are all that are, but surely not all that are, judging by the constant raids that continue to arrest more and more.

"I'm sure there are those who don't brag," adds Villagómez.

Francisco Badger,

the Chestnut

Francisco Tejón and his brother Antonio —approximately 40 and 35 years old, respectively— are the paradigm of the hashish mafias.

His nickname of

the Castaña

, comes from his father, seller of this fruit in a stall in La Línea de la Concepción.

"They began to steal from pharmacies and shops, until they robbed each time in a more elaborate way," recalls a civil guard who knew them when they were young.

From there they made the leap to hashish from the hand of the narco

El Messi

and they became drug lords with a fortune of about 30 million euros, according to police investigators.

Various joint cases of drug trafficking and money laundering are being filed against the powerful Badgers, although they have always maintained the version —through their respective lawyers— that they have not worked together.

After going back and forth to prison, Isco Tejón has been on the street since March 2021 —after paying bail of 200,000 euros— waiting for the first trial that he has scheduled for April and that will sit him on the bench with his brother and his son Darren.

It remains to be seen if he also explains what led him to star in a reggaeton video clip in 2018,

Candela

, when he was already being sought by Justice.

Or how he explains listening to him in which he talks about caches, his trips to Morocco or the conglomerate of more than ten companies in his name, despite not having recognized income.

Antonio Badger,

the Chestnut

Unlike his brother, Antonio, he has not been granted provisional freedom because he treasures causes and penalties different from those of his brother, which also mark his own adventures in the drug trade.

The most notorious is the one that led him to buy a civil guard from the Algeciras Judicial Police who was in charge of wiretapping drug traffickers and, incidentally, laundering more than two million euros.

Also, the 11 times that he won the lottery, a common resource among drug dealers that he has raised to a new level of carom.

But Antonio is also known for his dissolute life of luxury, parties and lovers that has ended up affecting his procedural future.

Father of more than six children, the youngest of the Castañas was the first to end up arrested —in June 2018—, after he made the mistake of visiting his lover,

who shared a partner with his official wife.

“She has always been more crazy head than Isco”, explains the same agent.

Abdellah El Haj Sadek,

the Messi of hashish

Abdellah El Haj Sadek, known as

the Messi of hashish

because of the admiration the player produces for him

,

He is the protagonist of the biggest scandal in the fight against the narco of the Straits.

In November 2017, he turned himself in after being searched for nine months and after reaching an agreement with the Algeciras area prosecutor that was negotiated by a captain of the Civil Guard, Joaquín Franco, who ended up being arrested for his alleged involvement in drug trafficking. .

After being located for a few months, on March 14, 2019, he sent a brief letter to the media in which he announced that he was fleeing again due to the alleged police pressure that he claimed to suffer.

Since then, little is known about him, although the agents suspect that he is hiding in a luxurious urbanization in northern Morocco, from where he could continue organizing caches.

Abdellah El Haj Sadek, the 'Messi of hashish', in an undated image from his social networks.

Jesus Heredia,

the Pantoja

The drug business is like the mythological Hydra, no matter how much you cut off a head, others quickly come out to replace it.

Jesús Heredia,

Pantoja

, is an example of this: like the Castañas, he learned from Messi.

Of the 34 years he was when he was arrested, a large part had supposedly been dedicated to organized crime, to planning diversified caches both in powerful narco boats packed with hashish, and in fishing boats.

The National Court believes that it is behind the drug cache that ended in the fatal sinking of the fishing boat

Rúa Mar

, which ended with the disappearance of four people and the death of two others.

Heredia was supposed to sit on the bench as of this past Tuesday, February 1, but the trial has been postponed —for the second time— to next September.

He was released on bail until this past Wednesday he ended up arrested again, now accused of resorting to a mafia based in Chiclana and specialized in logistics for drug traffickers and in smuggling hashish.

Jose Antonio Cortes Merino,

the Soccer Player

The hashish underworld of Campo de Gibraltar has its own codes of conduct, culture and customs.

Due to this kind of unwritten law, the gang of José Antonio Cortés Merino, 38, was entitled to an area of ​​the coast that they used "to smuggle a lot of drugs," as an agent in the area recalls.

Cortés, a soccer player for local teams who preferred to hang up his boots and dedicate himself to hashish trafficking.

The discipline of sport served him to apply it to the caches.

He had his people train each movement of a volley on the beach so that it would be perfect.

The coordination went awry when he ended up arrested in December 2018. Now, he and his gang are awaiting a macro trial, although a local civil guard is clear that he "continues to work."

Manuel PL,

Kiko the strong

Yes, Manuel PL, alias

Kiko the strong

, is still on the run in the north of Morocco -perhaps, in the same urbanization as Messi- it is not so much because of his problems with the Justice, but because "he left leaving a lot of money to owe", according to an agent from La Línea de the conception.

Kiko the strong comes from the taste he has for maintaining a muscular gym body, establishments that he came to manage as a possible cover for money laundering.

He ended up detained in November 2019, until, in January 2020, the Provincial Court released him because the evidence linking him to an investigated stash was not solid enough and because there was no risk of escape.

But Manuel, started in the business by the Castañas, fled and since then nothing is known about him, although the same investigator believes that he remains active.

Antonio Vazquez,

Anton

With Antonio Vázquez, alias

Antón

, began all the rhetoric that surrounds drug traffickers as criminals fond of ostentation and showing it off.

He became famous for walking with his lion cub down the street in the 90s in Barbate, when the town was hit by the harsh social and economic scourge of drug traffickers.

He, a sailor by profession, started early in the business and continued in it well into the new millennium until the legal cases piled up and he was sent to prison.

Today, close to 50 years old, he is still in a prison in El Puerto and will remain there until at least May of this year, when he will serve one of his sentences, according to judicial sources.

All a warning to the youngest traffickers who are now about to be judged.

Antonio Romero,

the Tomato.

Free pending trial

Although the Campo de Gibraltar has monopolized all the drug traffickers for years, there are those who take advantage of the southern location of the province and its proximity to Morocco to try their luck in other areas.

One of those hot spots is the Guadalquivir River and nearby towns such as Sanlúcar de Barrameda.

Here, famous traffickers have become such as Antonio Romero, alias

el Tomate

, -about 47 years old- known for his stinginess, but also for his love of horses, fighting cocks and the pilgrimages of El Rocío, the holy trinity of the local bosses.

After accumulating several investigations that led him to enter and leave prison provisionally, he now awaits the arrival of a trial against him that still has no date.

Isidoro M., alias 'El Doro', in an act of the Sanlúcar town hall. sanlúcar de barrameda town hall

Isidore M.,

the Doro

Isidoro M, alias El

Doro

, —42 years old— quickly climbed into the underworld of hashish, sponsored by his father-in-law, the historic

El Acuático

.

But some time ago he reoriented his activities to marijuana, where he saw the vein of posing as a reputed businessman of fields of fake CBD plantations -permitted by Spanish legislation because they do not have psychoactive substances- but with levels of THC -the main psychoactive of cannabis- deliberately altered.

He must have felt comfortable in this new role because when the Civil Guard arrested him last November he was no longer hiding.

In March 2019, he proudly posed as a sponsor for one of reggaeton star Nicky Jam's four concerts.

The Jerez Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office believes that he used that event and the Second Division football club UD Algaida to launder more than three million euros.

Now, he is in provisional prison for these facts.

Francisco Javier Ramos,

the Patron

He is not the most powerful, nor the one that has moved the most drugs —in this case, marijuana— or dirty money, but the case of Francisco Javier Ramos, alias

El Patron

, is a clear example of the boastful narco.

A week ago he ended up arrested again for laundering almost half a million euros, with the help of his parents.

But El Patron has been intimidating a town of just 7,000 inhabitants, Puerto Serrano, for too long, in which he has been able to infiltrate a good part of a street with marijuana crops.

His arrest has been precipitated after he did not hesitate to act as an extra in trap video clips and even to participate as the protagonist of the song

Rico or dead

by rapper singer Haze.

In the end, it all comes down to the key that Villagómez gives: "The problem is that they talk a lot."

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Source: elparis

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