The war on drugs was declared by then-US President Richard Nixon on June 17, 1971. The rest of the world quickly joined in. 55 years have passed, tens of thousands of people have died, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent. And illegal drugs are now more accessible, cheaper, and more widely consumed than in 1971.

Captain Swing has translated into Spanish the 15 years of work of journalist Toby Muse in Colombia reporting on drug trafficking. In Kilo: The Secret World of the Cocaine Cartels, this London-born reporter tries to recover – with the help of translator Victoria Pradilla – the English journalism of American authors from the 70s, such as Joan Didion, Michael Herr or Tom Wolfe.

Forty tons of cocaine are forty million grams of drugs. That is to say, forty tons of cocaine would be enough for almost every inhabitant of the Spanish state to have one gram of white powder for themselves. What's more, if the forty tons were a single line of cocaine, it would measure more than 20,000 kilometers and would almost go around the world. These two similes help to understand the magnitude of two operations carried out by the Guardia Civil: the Spanish police have intercepted 41 tons of cocaine in two blows against high-seas drug trafficking. One of these operations ended with 30 tons seized and has already become the largest seizure of this drug in Spain. Also, according to the Ministry of the Interior, it is the biggest blow to global drug trafficking in a single operation.

On one side of the table, the Irishman Daniel Kinahan; on the other, the Bosnian-born Dutchman Edin Gaçanin, alias Tito; opposite, the Moroccan Ridouan Taghi, and at one end, the Italian Raffaele Imperiale. They are conversing in a private room with sea views of the luxurious Burj Al Arab in Dubai. The pandemic has not yet arrived. They control the most important cocaine cartel in the world and feel untouchable. Impunity. Each one fulfills their role. The Irish manage the routes and distribution across various European countries. Gaçanin is the broker, the logistics and financing of the operations. Imperiale transports cocaine to the Italian Camorra. Taghi, the visible face of the Mocro Maffia, supervises the entry of drugs through Dutch and Belgian ports. Power in capital letters. The drug business was decided in Dubai.

Two investigations against drug trafficking have shown, once again, Barcelona's prominence as one of the entry points for cocaine into Europe, but also how drug traffickers attempt to infiltrate airport structures and bribe workers to assist them in transporting the drugs.

In just one year, the amount of cocaine detected in Barcelona's wastewater has practically tripled, according to the latest study by the European Union Agency for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EUDA). During 2025, the presence of this substance in Barcelona's wastewater was 185% higher than in 2024, thus returning almost to 2017 levels after several years of decline. However, Lleida ranks higher than Barcelona in absolute terms, after Tarragona, which until now led that ranking in the StateTarragona, in addition to being the leading city in Spain, had traditionally been the second European urban center with the most cocaine in its wastewater, second only to the Flemish city of Antwerp, home to one of Europe's main cocaine entry ports. However, the Catalan city has decided to withdraw from the project. Furthermore, Antwerp no longer leads this ranking; that position has been taken by Middlesbrough in northern England. The second city in Europe is Bristol, followed by Lleida, the leading city in Spain. In fact, the capital of the Segrià region is surprising because, unlike the two previous cases, it lacks a port. Nevertheless, Lleida has more cocaine in its wastewater than Antwerp, Granada, or Barcelona, ​​which ranks fourteenth.

The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) launched a major operation early Tuesday morning against an international drug trafficking organization operating between Catalonia and Italy. According to sources consulted by ARA, the gang primarily dealt in large quantities of cocaine, although they also handled other drugs such as marijuana and hashish. As is typical, Barcelona was the point of arrival for the drugs, and the gang then transported them to various Italian cities where the buyers were located. This newspaper has learned that the gang's leader has already been arrested in Barcelona. The Mossos expect to make approximately ten more arrests. Officers are currently raiding several apartments in Barcelona and Hospitalet de Llobregat. They anticipate carrying out up to nine searches. The police force has deployed around 150 officers, including members of the DIC (Criminal Investigation Division), the Central Unit, the ARRO (Rapid Response Unit), the BRIMO (Mobile Intervention Brigade), the canine unit, and the drone unit. The case is under seal.

Almost 70 tons in 25 years. This is the amount of cocaine that Customs Surveillance has seized at the port of Barcelona since 2000. In the last two and a half years, from 2023 to August 2025, 56% of this drug has been seized—almost 39 of the 70 tons—according to transparency data. This increase is a consequence of greater police efficiency, but above all because the port of Barcelona has become a one of the five ports of Europe with increased international drug trafficking activity, especially due to shipments originating from Guayaquil, Ecuador, and because mafias are already established in Catalonia.

"The freedom of everyone who has any dealings with these people is possibly in danger." This article appeared years ago in The Toads of the PortFirst, it was a website and then a blog in which an anonymous person reported that some dockworkers at the port of Barcelona were, at the same time, informers and drug traffickers who were tipping off the police about a drug shipment that was about to arrive so they could arrest him and a rival drug trafficker, so they could continue with the shipment. One of the most repeated names on this blog is David Caballero, known as Bubito. It was rumored that he was one of the leaders of the white powder scandal at the port, but on this page they directly accused him of being one and collaborating with the police.

On July 29, an operation by the French police's Anti-Crime Brigade (BAC) ended with the arrest of Laurent Vallet, president of the National Audiovisual Institute (INA). Vallet was arrested at his home in Paris after purchasing cocaine from a 17-year-old boy, according to judicial and police sources confirmed to AFP. This being his first arrest, the court has referred Vallet to a therapeutic program, an alternative measure focused on addiction treatment.

All the Mallorcan parties have voted in favor of maintaining subsidies for businesses to label in CatalanExcept for Vox, which hasn't set foot in Barcelona for a while, or it would know, by now, that this is, above all, a way to avoid everything being in English. Toni Gili, the spokesperson, used a flowery and revealing phrase: "It's as immoral for the PSOE to spend money on whores and cocaine as it is for you to vote in favor of these subsidies." Let's leave aside the fact that this sentence contains two levels of language. I would recommend, if I were to give you a speech, that it should be said either "whores and lines" or "prostitutes and cocaine." Podemos reproached him for being a partner in the company Terracor, which apparently received aid for labeling in the devil's language. I find, in short, that this detail is an act of coherence.

In Ignasi Aragay

He's a veteran stevedore at the Port of Barcelona. He didn't maintain a high standard of living, nor did he pretend to be better than he was. When he learned the delivery hadn't gone well, he decided to go into hiding. He did so in a hotel in the Sants neighborhood of Barcelona. The police entered his house and didn't find him. They did find an arsenal: two brass knuckles, a stun gun, a 12-gauge shotgun, a big-game rifle, a 9mm sporting handgun, a .22-caliber rifle, and an air pistol. They eventually located him the next day, walking down the street, and arrested him.

"You'd go to a party and people would barely hide when they did a line of cocaine," says David López Canales (Madrid, 1980). "This is why this journalist decided to try to answer a question: why is so much cocaine consumed in Spain and not talked about? The result is the essay ¿A little line?, from Anagrama publishing house.

It's hard to say it like this: Barcelona, ​​​​a cocaine addict. It may sound exaggerated. But no: it reflects a reality that is both proclaimed and very worrying. It falls short; with its port also serving as a gateway, like Europe as a whole, we are at the root of the problem. A global problem.

A dog persistently sniffs a shipping container filled with sacks of cocoa. A Civil Guard officer guides it while Customs Surveillance officers examine it. The container comes from Ecuador, and the objective is to find a bag of hidden cocaine. The 70-kilogram sacks are stacked on top of each other, without pallets, making surveillance even more difficult. Everything must be done by hand. The dog doesn't bark or sit: for now, it's clean. At another terminal in the port, Customs Surveillance officers open the doors of another container. It's a quick gesture, but it happens slowly. "This one is quite likely carrying drugs," they warn. It comes from Brazil, and there are a multitude of boxes of sewing thread. They climb in, search, open, but only thread and more thread appear. They touch the boxes with some kind of marker. It's called cocatest. Also a negative woman.

Thirteen percent of Spaniards between the ages of 15 and 64 admit to having used cocaine at least once in their lives. This is one in eight citizens. Twenty-five years ago, that percentage was only 3.1%. This is one of the conclusions of the latest Ages report on alcohol and other drug use. Cocaine, as it is known, is a The United Nations warned on Thursday, is the drug that has grown the most worldwide in recent years. Politicians, athletes, lawyers, journalists... cocaine is present in all social strata, and Spain—Catalonia included—is the European country with the highest consumption. "It's linked to our leisure culture. We take drugs to socialize, while in northern European countries they do it to escape," explains Emilio Salgado, head of toxicology at the Hospital Clínic, who believes that in Mediterranean culture, prohibition would not be the solution to this problem. "Taking drugs is part of our nature," he maintains.

Barcelona has become the fifth largest port of entry for cocaine in Europe, according to United Nations data accessed by ARA. This drug is the most worrying, also in terms of consumption levels. In fact, Spain is the country that consumes the most cocaine in all of Europe, and, for example, one in four users who visit the emergency room at Hospital Clínic for substance abuse is due to cocaine. We spoke with a user who became hooked on cocaine at age 14 to learn how addiction works, and also with several drug traffickers who explain how this very lucrative business operates.

Someone was smuggling cell phones, chargers, SIM cards, and also drugs, from cocaine to heroin, into Mas de Enric prison in Tarragona. The Mossos d'Esquadra investigation led to a prison officer. He obtained all the merchandise outside of working hours and then distributed it. He put it in bags or pockets. Meanwhile, he was depositing cash into his bank account. Up to 400 euros for a cell phone (he deposited dozens), adding up to 70,000 a year and a half. He was an experienced officer, familiar with the security mechanisms, and working for two inmates who were demanding the substances. The case would be serious enough on its own, but it turned out to be the smallest part of a much larger scheme: The joint investigation by the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Civil Guard has resulted in fifteen arrests, four investigations and two organisations dedicated to cocaine trafficking dismantled.

It's the drug of greatest concern today. Over the past four years, the global cocaine market has continued to grow, and in 2023, according to figures released by the United Nations this Thursday, cocaine will reach record levels in production, seizures, consumption, treatment, and related deaths," Pietschmann, a researcher with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) since 1997, said. World Drugs Report 2025, cocaine production soared by 34% in 2023, reaching over 3,708 tons. In 2019, half that amount, 1,784 tons, was recorded. The increase in recent years is mainly due to Colombia, which is the world's largest producer and accounts for nearly 70% of the market. The hectares where the cocaine is planted—equivalent to 525,000 soccer fields—have grown far below total production, indicating greater concentration and higher crop yields.