The narcos' reckoning on the Costa del Sol, a war hidden behind luxury tourism

Struggled in international conflicts, Antonio Pampliega, one of the Spanish journalists kidnapped in Aleppo (Syria) for 10 months between 2015 and 2016, was unaware of much of the violence that takes place on the Costa del Sol, a few kilometers from his family home in Antequera (Malaga).

It was when he received the proposal to lead the

investigative

, inspired by the book by Antonio Romero Ruiz and Miguel Díaz Becerra, when he entered a reality hidden by the splendor of luxury tourism.

In each of the 10 episodes of this original Amazon Music production by La Maldita, chosen last week as one of the most interesting

of 2022 by several experts consulted by this newspaper, listeners can discover the stories and the

of more than 100 mafia entities of 59 nationalities installed in the area.

In this tower of Babel of organized crime, drug traffickers are increasingly sharing resources and operations in a place that Europol ranks as one of the most violent areas in Europe, with numerous murders due to reckoning between 2018 and 2021.

Pampliega (Madrid, 40 years old) and his team trace the personal testimonies of the drug traffickers and their lawyers;

of policemen, of drug boat pilots and also of journalists who witnessed how criminals lived decades ago, in the Marbella of the

with princes and movie stars.

What his investigations discover, as Pampliega himself defined in mid-December in a telephone conversation, is "a surreal realism, with echoes of Federico Fellini and Paolo Sorrentino."

The journalist Antonio Pampliega takes over the investigative 'podcast' 'Costa Nostra'. La Maldita

The book on which the

is inspired went on sale in 2009, so it serves as a mere excuse to start new lines of research.

“I like working with documentation.

I read Antonio and Miguel's book.

I studied it in depth, I added more documentation... It surprised me, because Galicia is always talked about when we look at the drug issue.

I had no idea what was happening in my backyard.

And it's scary”, explains the journalist, who wanted to flee from what he himself calls “the desktop 'true crime'”.

One of the things that Pampliega asked for was to work in the field.

“I wanted to do and direct the interviews myself.

It's what I do.

I didn't want to limit myself to reading in a study what someone else has done,” he says.

After months of work, he obtained testimonies from some of the criminals on the Costa del Sol and the agents who pursue them.

“Except in some specific cases, the National Police, the Civil Guard and the Customs Service were always available.

They were so busy that there hasn't been time to show all the material we got, ”he admits.

Access to criminals was a very different matter.

“It took us a long time to convince them.

Both one and the other, especially the criminals, have accepted mainly because their faces do not come out.

They feel less exposed to audio.

Most likely, we would not have been able to have these testimonies if

would have been an audiovisual production”, comments Pampliega, who had the support of a

, a person familiar with the environment to be investigated, who serves as a mediator between the journalist and his interviewees.

Ricardo Álvarez-Ossorio, a lawyer for some drug traffickers on the Costa del Sol, is one of those interviewed in 'Costa Nostra'. Fernando Moleres

a different context

After meeting drug traffickers in countries like Colombia and Mexico, the man from Madrid narrates a criminal context that is very different from that of Spain.

For

he met with his team with one of them in a restaurant on the Costa del Sol. “I checked if he had a 'pipa' and he didn't.

I was surprised that when he sat down, he turned his back to the door.

In other places, criminals have to tread carefully, because they know that other drug traffickers can kill them in the middle of the street.

But in this area of ​​Spain, despite everything that happens, it is more difficult for something like this to happen.

No corpses appear on the bridges, ”he explains.

also

has time to explore secondary characters around this criminal circle.

One of them is Ricardo Álvarez-Ossorio, a renowned criminal lawyer who is nicknamed "the devil's advocate" by some media.

At the same time, he represents clients such as the Vatican, large Spanish companies and powerful drug traffickers such as Mohamed Taieb Ahmed, alias

.

“What we wanted was not only to revolve around what narco and drugs are, but also to show other types of people affected by that environment.

He explains to us without hiding, with his name and surname, his work defending these people.

The listener understands thanks to testimonials like his that 'Costa Nostra' is a very real story”, defends Pampliega.

Many of the stories of these criminals are that of former children with no future from southern Spain and northern Spain.

In the port of Algeciras, the reporter discovers what the drug traffickers' boats are like, and meets the head of Customs Surveillance and two of his adversaries.

One of them is Manuel, capable of unloading bales in 90 seconds.

He “He started dealing in second-hand clothes in Tangier as a child and has become one of the big drug traffickers who smuggles hashish into Europe.

He explained his life to us with a 50,000-euro watch, ”says Pampliega.

The other is David, a narco-boat pilot used to risking his life dodging patrol cars at more than 100 kilometers per hour: "He has spent a couple of years in jail, but he doesn't care, it pays to earn thousands of euros per trip" .

From what the researcher says, there is enough material for more seasons of

.

“We have left everything that happens with cocaine for reasons of time.

After Antwerp, Algeciras is the second port with the most traffic in this drug in Europe.

Cocaine is killed on the Costa del Sol, something that usually does not happen with hashish.

I would like to dig there and see how far it takes us, whether to Mexico, Panama, Colombia…”, confesses the journalist.

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