How a shoot-out in the marshes of Spain’s cocaine superhighway led crack investigators to track down two narco hitmen living lives of luxury on the Costa del Sol

LIKE so many of their neighbours on the Costa del Sol, the two men lived lives of comfort and luxury from their expensive villas.

The one known as Swarthy (el moreno) enjoyed the use of a series of luxury pads in the Marbella area, which he switched between at his leisure.

For Little Birdie (pajarito), he preferred to stick to just one luxury apartment in Mijas. 

Between them, they boasted a portfolio of properties that could have been the envy of many a Costa del Sol high roller.

READ MORE: WATCH: Shots fired as Atlantic storms flush narcos into Guardia Civil ambush on Sevilla river

But the thing that both men had in common – aside from their line of work – was that neither paid a dime in rent, nor were their names seen on any documentation.

Which was understandable, since all four properties were squatted.

The other thing that set them apart from the average expats soaking up the sun was that each one was a hardened mafia hitman, deeply involved in the drug trade that has come to dominate southern Andalucia.

While they enjoyed the high life in Malaga province, they were secretly commuting to the muddy wetlands of the Guadalquivir river to work as high-priced sicarios for the region’s most dangerous gangs.

But their cover was finally blown after getting into a shootout with the Guardia Civil in the pitch-black silence of the river marshes on November 8 – a world away from the glitz of Puerto Banus.

READ MORE: WATCH: Astonishing moment Spanish mayor rails against drug traffickers while standing just metres from idling narco boats

Elite officers from the GRECO unit had been monitoring a drug landing at a notorious choke-point known as La Señuela on the outskirts of the town of Isla Mayor when the silence was shattered by the rhythmic thud of 7.62mm ammunition.

Upon realising they were walking into a trap the narcos, instead of surrendering, went on the attack, armed with weapons of war.

A vehicle loaded with five men charged the police position, with the occupants screaming ‘we have to kill those dogs’ as they unleashed a hail of bullets from AK-47 assault rifles.

Three officers were wounded in the chaotic firefight.

READ MORE: Shock in Almeria as drug speed boats form ‘floating narco village’ in tourist beauty spot during Storm Emilia

One agent was saved by his bulletproof vest, which shattered his ribs, while another took two bullets to the abdomen, requiring urgent life-saving surgery.

The gunmen vanished into the darkness, leaving behind shell casings that would eventually lead investigators away from the wetlands and back to the luxury urbanisations of the coast.

This week, following a massive investigation by National Police, the pair were tracked down to their coastal hideouts after the terrifying shootout.

Investigators discovered that Swarthy had been living a surreal double life in Marbella.

Despite earning up to €50,000 per ‘security job’, he was living as a high-end ‘okupa’ (squatter), occupying the three different luxury villas while surrounding himself with drones, satellite phones and cocaine.

Swarthy had installed his wife and children in his three squatted homes, even moving his brother-in-law in to act as his ‘logistics man,’ renting cars and driving him around in a ‘security capsule’ so that the hitman never had to get behind the wheel of a car registered to his own name.

When police kicked the doors down, they found him watching Netflix, sitting around a pile of cocaine weighing 70kg and an arsenal of weapons, drones, night vision goggles and satellite phones.

All the while, his family slept in the other rooms.

It was a far cry from the scene of the crime that led to their downfall.

In the process of the investigation, detectives unravelled a sophisticated network led by a local kingpin known as ‘Lettuce’.

From his base in Isla Mayor, Lettuce allegedly managed the logistics, using stash houses and stolen tractors to move tonnes of hashish through the difficult terrain.

But for muscle, he ‘outsourced’ to the professionals from the coast.

The operation to bring them down involved 250 agents and resulted in 10 arrests across Sevilla and Malaga.

Police seized 4.5 tonnes of hashish, 70 kilos of cocaine, and the recovery of the ‘weapons of war’ used to hunt the police.

The bust has been hailed as a major victory by police unions, who used the violence of the November ambush to demand better protections.

“The 250 agents on the ground have earned, once again, the recognition of their risky profession,” said a spokesperson for Jusapol.

“The colleague who was shot in the marshes earned it the hard way.”

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