The drug trafficking triad in the Strait of Gibraltar lived a few years of splendor in which the gold and diamond watches that arrived from Dubai were proudly displayed in big cars and parties to shamelessly show the power of the lords of hashish.
The drug was provided by Fikri Amellah Agharbi and a childhood friend with whom he had grown up in Al Hoceima (Morocco) until they became "the largest known suppliers of hashish."
The pass was left in the hands of Abdellah El Haj Sadek el Membri, better known as
El Messi del hashís
,
the drug lord who first escaped from Spain taking advantage of a judicial prebend and then withdrew from circulation out of fear.
The final section was now in the hands of the Tejón brothers, Isco and Antonio, better known as
The Castañas
and described as "the kings of hashish", about to sit on the bench in the largest trial to date of a Campo Gibraltar drug mafia.
Now the Civil Guard has cut off the flow of
chocolate
that Fikri Amellah's organization still controlled by arresting his childhood friend, with whom he used to go sailing and fishing.
Between one and the other, it is estimated that they have placed in Spain at least 117 tons of hashish and 3.3 tons of cocaine.
The Civil Guard has arrested 10 people during the second phase of the MVRAD operation, in the first part of which, carried out in December last year, Fikri Amellah Agharbi, 44, "one of the most wanted drug traffickers in the world" was arrested.
His network, which had been running for at least 20 years, was persecuted by Europol, the French Gendarmerie, the Belgian Police, and even the DEA... Now the one who has fallen is his close friend from boats and fishing, identified with the initials AA , who had inherited the business.
Among those arrested is a lawyer based in the province of Malaga, specializing in cases related to drug trafficking.
Arrest of the heir to the Fikri network.
Investigators have carried out searches in Barcelona, Almería, Ceuta and Málaga (where the heir was arrested) and consider the connection of the 10 detainees to "a total of 117,000 kilograms of hashish and 3,359 of cocaine" accredited, according to a note released this tomorrow by the Civil Guard.
"Only during the last months of 2021, it has been verified how they supplied more than 100 tons of hashish to different criminal organizations that operated in Spain," adds the armed institute.
During this period, the gang has received numerous blows, such as those that led to the seizure of 4,360 kilograms of hashish in San Pedro de Pinatar (Murcia), another of 1.35 tons of cocaine in Tangier (Morocco), 1,003 kilos of hashish in France and another 15,000 kilograms of hashish in Huelva, all of them between June and October 2021.
Antonio Tejón Carrasco, during his arrest in La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz), in June 2018. National Police
The trafficking system of this gang had become the standard for drug trafficking in the Strait: drug boats at full speed between the Moroccan and Spanish coasts, clandestine landings, hiding in a nursery, distribution in Spain and abroad and payment.
The boats and motors with which they compete in speed with the Civil Guard and Customs Surveillance were imported from the Netherlands to Portugal, where they were tuned up and sent to work "on the different entry routes for narcotic substances."
Until they fell or broke.
Civil guards, after seizing one of the caches of the Fikri network.
The money was managed by the network through a structure based in Dubai, from where it had several systems to return the drug money, already laundered.
"As an example, it has been corroborated how they sent "mules" from that Emirate transporting watches of great economic value to Spain, having intervened by the investigators several of these pieces, some of them collector's items and whose market value would reach higher prices. at 800,000 euros ”, literally writes the Civil Guard.
And they had also acquired luxury yachts and had used companies in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland or Turkey.
Those were the heyday of this network, of this hashish triangle, which is now against the wall.
Fikri and his childhood friend are in jail.
His organization has lost 27 soldiers, 58 checking accounts have been blocked and 10 properties and 36 high-end cars have been seized.
The Messi of hashish has withdrawn (apparently) due to fear and depression, as he himself recounted in March 2019, although he should be in jail: he escaped after having starred in a first film escape and reaching, in November of 2017, a controversial agreement with the chief prosecutor of Algeciras to turn himself in in exchange for being released on bail if he collaborated in an anti-terrorist investigation.
The third leg of the triad, formed by the Castaña brothers,
Right now he is about to sit on the bench again in a macro trial with 157 investigated, who face 2,000 years in prison and 16,000 million euros in fines, for crimes such as drug trafficking, criminal organization or smuggling.
The business.
File of the so-called Messi of hashish, in Europol.