The narco flats of Barcelona they are no longer places inside which drug addicts can inject heroin. In the neighborhood of Raval About twenty flats where drugs are sold are still active. But only in some do the traffickers consent to consumption. And under no circumstances can this be with a needle: it must be smoked. This is confirmed by the sources consulted by EL PERIÓDICO, which include agents of the Barcelona City Guardeducators, three drug addicts who frequent narco-flats and a person in charge of one of these controversial occupied homes that appeared for the first time in the heart of the Catalan capital in the summer of 2017.
The change in trend in the operation of narco-flats has caused an increase in the sale of heroin, cocaine or crack around the CAS Baluard –the Raval narcosala–, according to police sources. And that, contrary to what the official figures from the Barcelona City Council say -which do not show a significant increase in syringe collection or health care after the pandemic-, the residents of the area maintain that the presence of drug addicts who shoot themselves in the street.
needles prohibited
“Most of the drug flats are points of sale where no one shoots anymore.” The person who speaks is possibly one of the police officers who has most thoroughly investigated the operation of narco-flats in recent years. The work of GDU agents like this one, on the street, has fed information into the large operations led by the Mossos d’Esquadra against these drug flats.
“In the old days there were some narco-flats to get shots, but now it’s impossible,” confirms a consumer and trafficker that he has been in charge of narco-flats in recent years and that he agrees to speak with this newspaper under anonymity. “You can consume crack, cocaine or horse. But always smoked. Punctured is not allowed because if a person dies, brown is for the narco-flat,” she maintains.
Eve Y Maria, two drug addicts who explain that they have ended up in the Raval attracted by the presence of drug dealers who provide them with the drugs they consume and not by the narco room, which they also go to, confirm that traffickers have not let anyone inject anything for a long time . In the past, they even asked customers to inject themselves inside the home so that the drug would not go out into the street and thus hinder police investigations. Now consumers who want to inject themselves must do so in the drug room, or on the street.
Punctures in the street
Mariaa neighbor who lives next to the narcosala, affirms that the presence of the Raval narcosala -attached to the CUAP Peracamps for five years – generates a call effect because it supplies drug addicts with everything they need to get high. A bad deal, insists María, because many go out to inject themselves on the street and the lack of hygiene that this entails – there is dirt and blood stains despite the redoubled efforts of the cleaning teams – is compounded by growing insecurity due to robberies. that they commit to pay for drugs, he says.
The Barcelona’s town hall holds the opposite: crime has gone down and drug addicts go to the Raval because there are drugs in the Raval, not because of the presence of this health facility. To defend the latter, the consistory argues that the rest of the drug rooms in the city receive drug addicts who are undergoing treatment to unhook, but not to go there to shoot heroin. Because there is no one who sells it in the rest of the districts.
“The average time that elapses between when a user buys heroin and injects it is ten minutes“, adds the same spokesman. For this reason, the drug store, if it really intends to reduce damage, must be close to where it is sold. That is, in the Raval. the traffickers have gone out to look for clients hanging around the narcosala.
The logical consequence is that, although the data deny an increase in heroin consumption, in this particular area there are more punctures in the street and more drug dealing, according to the police officers consulted, who are the ones who daily have to deal with the problem of public health.
The work of the GDU
“This is a playground. You don’t come here to sell heroin. Get away”. The tone of the corporal of the Urban Guard of Barcelona, who addresses a Pakistani trafficker surprised while preparing a piece of heroin for a drug addict sitting on a small table with springs for children, is serious. A colleague of the Urban Crime Group (GDU) specialized in drug trafficking in the Ciutat Vella district calls the camel by name and asks him to obey his corporal and leave a park located within the Rambla del Raval. The trafficker hesitates and ends up leaving.
The drug pass was filmed by the policeman who followed the drug dealer and the consumer from the CAS Baluard. In the images you can even see how he prepares the paper. During the subsequent search, carried out minutes later, the piece of paper appears, among the drug addict’s clothes, who begins to scream madly. But the police can’t find the rest of the heroin the trafficker is hiding. Neither does the transaction money. This is why the police have let the camel go instead of arresting it
A few meters away and just a few minutes later, on Calle de la Cera, the same plainclothes police group stops a Dominican woman who is traveling on an electric scooter. They also know her: a few months ago she was arrested for supplying drugs to neighborhood narco-flats moving around on a scooter, like this Wednesday. The agents look in her bag. Inside cosmetic creams. Any. Despite suspicions, they also let the woman go, just like the Pakistani smuggler. They’re sure she was carrying the drug “in her parts of it” but they can’t look there.
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The difficult balance between controlling drug trafficking on the street by obtaining legal evidence but doing so without violating the fundamental rights of the residents is well appreciated in both incidents. An hour later, a few meters from the entrance to the drug room, an arrest did occur: the trafficker was caught delivering the drug and the drug addict, despite the police intervention, turned around, squatting in a corner , and is punctured.
the mayor Ada Colau He has asked this week that police efforts be intensified to cut off the distribution networks that fill this neighborhood with drugs. But that takes time. The Urban Guard has reinforced its presence in the Raval. And the day-to-day life of agents like those of the GDU consists of frightening off traffickers, treating drug addicts and calming down increasingly irascible neighbors.