Gliders, bundles, porters… the narcos of the Strait seek a new base in the Ebro delta

The journey made by the pilots of the narco-lanchas of the Ebro delta is the longest of those of the hashish business in Spain. And by force of circumstances: the anti-drug units of the Civil Guard believe that the police pressure in the Strait and the Campo de Gibraltar is forcing the drug traffickers to change their base, and that their new refuge is the beaches and rice fields that They wait to green at that point of the coast of Tarragona.

In the last weeks, two operations of the armed institute, Maius and Drift, have culminated a major series of blows against delta hashish networks. At the end of March and the beginning of April, two such important logistics networks have been dismantled, that one of the police sources consulted predicts that for a time “hashish is going to be scarce in various parts of the country and Europe.”

They have fallen together two gang leaders, 51 pawns, 8,000 kilos of hashish, two fleets of five boats each, its park of vans and warehouses in which to store the drug waiting for collection by customers. Because the two groups worked not so much to traffic as to provide services to traffickers and collaborators from Algeciras, Murcia, Castellón, Alicante, Ibiza, Galicia, Extremadura, Catalonia… with extensions in France and Portugal.

This blow to transport and stash networks is the last step in a succession that has confirmed that the Delta is a new drug base. It was already pointed out by the largest seizure of the Mossos -with the Tax Agency-, on April 30, 2020. In full confinement they hunted a sailboat with 11 tons of hashish destination Tarragona.

Two years later, on the 5th, the Civil Guard caught two alijadores in the Torrent del Pi beach of L’Ametlla (Tarragona) who had unloaded 2.5 tons of drugs from a boat.

And in between, three seizures that are key chapters: 810 kilos in an apartment in Cambrils in April 2021. In October, 2,481 kilos on a beach of Vinarós (Castellón). In November, 289 on the beach of the Pixerota of Mont-roig del Camp.

In the three police hits a key element escaped: the pilot. In the case of Mont-Roig, the Civil Guard patrol boat “nearly burst the engines, but it could not be & rdquor ;, says a police source familiar with the operation.

The narco-lancha pilot from the delta does like those from the Strait: he never goes ashore in a rush. It is important to preserve the cargo, but more so the boat. The largest measure between 12 and 15 meters. They have been modified to join engines behind to add more than 1,000 horsepower, and have seats in a row, one for the pilot and two for operators of the network it serves.

“Forever They sail at night and arrive at night. They release the caches shortly before dawn & rdquor ;, says the same source. Another agent places 60,000 euros the average of what the delta pilot charges for the Tarragona-Morocco-Tarragona trip. It is an amount similar to that received by those who cross the Strait. “They are the best paid in the entire organization: their journey is dangerous and requires a lot of skill & rdquor ;, he says.

He refers to night crossings and revolts in Alborán trying not to be seen, and tremendous accelerations in “a dark sea with drums and other objects floating & rdquor ;.

Those who cross the Mediterranean charge more, of course, than the pawns that the two networks bet to watch. Your mission: stand at the beginning of one of the narrow roads district roads that run between the orchards and rice fields and notify if any police patrol appears. The Ebro Delta, its beaches, its estuaries and river channels, the labyrinth of its plantations… is the refuge for drug activity that the State tries to suffocate in the south with the Special Plan for the Strait of Gibraltar.

In fact, in the two recent operations of the Civil Guard in Tarragona, not only the command of that province, the command in Barcelona and the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime (Citco) have participated: also the OCON South u Coordination Body against Drug Trafficking.

The Criminal Analysis Office of the Civil Guard in Tarragona evaluated various information about the heartbeat of drug trafficking in the Delta when the investigation began, in 2021, initially believing that they were following a single network. Last Tuesday, proceedings were finally presented in the Court of Instruction 2 of Reus.

Part of this intelligence work has been to follow the symbols and codes –“Rolex”, “Ramos 4”, “AFC”- that identify in each bundle of hashish the gang that ordered to bring it from Morocco, to pallets of between 3,000 and 4,000 kilos by boat “Some games bring a small marked drawing. is the quality signature of the Moroccan grower, who wants his client to know who he is & rdquor ;, say sources close to the operation.

On March 3, when the Civil Guard crossed paths with the Police and Customs Surveillance in the seizure of 2.4 tons of hashish 80 miles south of Ibiza, the Citco finished tying some coincidences, once the crew of the glider were trapped in Cabo de Palos, in Cartagena.

They had managed to flee for 400 miles, skirting the southeastern corner of Spain. They are swift, as discreet as the bosses have become.

Only in Catalonia, there have been arrests in, among other points, Santa Coloma, Viladecans and Cambrilswhere one of the bands had their drug dealer workshop. A Catalan leader and another Albanian have fallen. Catalan is held by the Civil Guard as Catalonia’s main hashish logistician. He has his residence on the beach of Riumarin a chalet that does not stand out too much, nor the goods he used: a good car, a good motorcycle, a small boat for leisure…

It was easier for the Albanian to mark him in the follow-ups because, if he visited his Moroccan guards, they surrounded him, showing that he is the boss. His house is a middle-class flat in a new but unassuming building. Viladecáns (Barcelona). Nor did his behavior show the shameless waste of bosses of the hashish trafficking of the Strait.

Neither the Catalan from Riumar nor the Albanian from the Baix Llobregat dormitory town could be bet that they ran service networks for drug traffickers. They charged not only for bringing hashish from Morocco: also for giving security –always unarmed, except for a simulated pistol- and roof customers on their trips to the Costa Dorada. But always with discretion: no hotels: in Riumar used a mobile home trailerable. They could change direction.

Two courts of the main parties of the Delta already accumulate work from the different police coups against drug trafficking in their new Catalan base: the aforementioned one in Reus and also that of Instruction 3 in Tortosa. And perhaps his work has only just begun. The Civil Guard has been detecting a gradual soaking of society surrounding area, in the same way that drug traffickers gradually infiltrated the neighborhood of Campo de Gibraltar. There are not only foreigners in the network: drivers were also seduced, crush and porters from Cambrils, Deltebre, El Vendrell, Mont-Roig… more and more people from the Delta.