19 Jul, 2024 @ 13:50
2 mins read

Revealed: Why violent drug gangs are moving to Marbella, according to local criminal expert – following wave of shootings this year

DRUG trafficking gangs are increasingly moving their operations to Marbella because of a continued police crackdown further down the coast, an expert has warned. 

Ana Isabel Cerezo, a director at the Andalucian Institute of Criminology, gave a talk on the scourge of so-called narcos at the University of Malaga last week, alongside other experts. 

She told attendees how an ‘intensive and exhaustive’ ramping up of surveillance in and around Algeciras is pushing mafia activity towards the Costa del Sol. 

The port of Algeciras is one of the most important entry points for drugs in Europe due to its strategic location. 

It sits just across the Gibraltar Strait from Morocco, the biggest hashing exporting country in the world, and is one of the first ports of call – alongside Galicia in the north – for cocaine and other drugs being shipped from South America. 

But a police crackdown over the past year has, according to Cerezo, made Marbella a ‘very attractive’ option for drug traffickers looking for alternative delivery routes. 

It comes after police in Cadiz demanded more resources in February when a narco boat rammed against a Guardia Civil vessel and killed two officers.

Alleged mafia hitmen are arrested on the Costa del Sol in May this year
Policia Nacional are pictured on the scene of the Guadalmina shooting in Marbella earlier this year (COPYRIGHT: Olive Press Spain)

This sparked a fierce and continued police response along the Costa de la Luz, with officers vowing to make life difficult for drug gangs.

According to Cerezo, the drug trafficking ‘phenomenon’ in Andalucia is caused by a perfect storm of geographical location and poverty. 

There are a number of very poor communities, such as the Campo de Gibraltar, where jobs are scarce and people more easily persuaded to make a quick buck as part of a narco gang. 

Additionally, Cerezo said traffickers are attracted to Gibraltar because it is a ‘tax haven’ – a term the British colony has long rejected. 

For these reasons, the expert said the scourge of drug crime continues unabated, despite a series of crackdowns and reinforcements by the authorities since 2018. 

In her opinion, the only way to beat the gangs is to tackle poverty at its root and come up with a ‘coordinated and global’ plan. 

“It is of no use to us to take initiatives that are not homogenised with the rest of the autonomous communities or even countries, because this is a global problem,” she stressed.

Algeciras Port is hugely important entry point for cocaine in Spain and Europe

She pointed out that in some places measures to legalise soft drugs have been implemented as first steps to address the issue. 

“Until now, at the international level, all the measures that have been adopted have been prohibitionist, and it is being shown that they are not of much use,” she said, suggesting that legalising or decriminalising some drugs may help weaken mafias. 

Laurence Dollimore

Laurence Dollimore is a Spanish-speaking, NCTJ-trained journalist with almost a decade’s worth of experience.
The London native has a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and and an MA in the same subject from Queen Mary University London.
He earned his gold star diploma in multimedia journalism at the prestigious News Associates in London in 2016, before immediately joining the Olive Press at their offices on the Costa del Sol.
After a five-year stint, Laurence returned to the UK to work as a senior reporter at the Mail Online, where he remained for two years before coming back to the Olive Press as Digital Editor in 2023.
He continues to work for the biggest newspapers in the UK, who hire him to investigate and report on stories in Spain.
These include the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mail Online, Mail on Sunday and The Sun and Sun Online.
He has broken world exclusives on everything from the Madeleine McCann case to the anti-tourism movement in Tenerife.

GOT A STORY? Contact newsdesk@theolivepress.es or call +34 951 273 575 Twitter: @olivepress

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