The man shot last Tuesday in broad daylight on a terrace in the Sant Martí district of Barcelona died this Sunday afternoon in hospital, as ARA has learned. The victim, 44, was seriously injured after receiving several bullet impacts to the neck, arms, and abdomen, as well as several stab wounds. Finally, six days later, he died in the hospital.

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.

Its symbol is that of a lion. They were born in the 90s on the streets of Glasgow. First, they engaged in petty crime, local delinquency, but they entered the world of drug trafficking and evolved. So much so that they left Scotland and became a transnational drug cartel, with branches in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. They call themselves the Lyons and a Guardia Civil operation has decapitated their presence in Catalonia, Spain, and the world.

Every year, more than 3 million containers pass through the port of Algeciras. Hundreds of thousands of trucks also pass through. The person in charge of controlling all this material is Lisardo Capote, head of the Customs Surveillance Service (SVA) in the Campo de Gibraltar. He leads the fight against drug trafficking and money laundering in southern Spain: the African coast is only 14 kilometers from the Iberian Peninsula. How is the drug trafficking issue right now?

The violent waves crash against the jetty. It is pitch black. A rainy and cold winter night. At Chechu's Bar, at the entrance to the port of Barbate, young and old alike defy the storm, smoking and finishing their beer. Most no longer live off the sea, but the sea calls to them. A Civil Guard car drives slowly past the bar. Looks of distrust from one and the other. A few hours later, at dawn, the police will return to the port area. A narcolancha has taken refuge there for a while to avoid the furious thrashing of the water. The traffickers' gomones seek refuge in the ports of the area while they wait for their moment.

The old pier on the Barbate River is a graveyard of timbers weathered by time. The barges sunk beneath the greenish water contrast with the white facades of the houses, demanding a coat of paint. The asphalt is full of ruts and cracks. In Barbate, there is no public transport. The theatre is in ruins. The parks, abandoned. The sports facilities flood when it rains. "We have an endemic lag of 15 or 20 years," admits the mayor of the municipality, Miguel Molina.

The Costa del Sol, with its epicenter located in the city of Marbella, is the southern gateway for drug entry into Europe and a true hub where mafias from all over the world converge, to the point that police forces acknowledge their inferiority compared to organizations that move hundreds of millions and have practically no limits. L'ARA wanted to get a close look at the impact of the drug business on the Andalusian coast with two major reports, one focused on Marbella and another, to be published tomorrow, on Barbate. Marbella has been synonymous with luxury and glamour, but also corruption, for many decades. Barbate, on the other hand, represents the other side of the coin, that of old fishing villages where poverty has driven many young people towards drug trafficking, who are nothing more than pawns of international cartels.

Driving through it, from the access roads to the main avenues, Marbella has the quality of being a city that could be many other cities. Better said, any other overcrowded city on the Costa Dorada, Costa Brava, French Riviera, or the Costa del Sol itself, of which it is an emblem. The tallest buildings are hotels and not offices, the apartment blocks, also imposing, have communal swimming pools, and the mountains on the horizon are full of white dots; buildings that have destroyed the natural landscape. But if you venture onto the roads that wind through the mountains, you see they are not chalets or old houses: there are many mansions, complexes, tennis clubs, and exclusive golf courses. The health crossing signs are accompanied by signs that say Arzt and Apotheke, not doctor or pharmacy. The billboards are in English and advertise private clinics, mostly for aesthetic tweaks, to treat low fertility or hair loss, aimed at an older demographic who do not want to - or at least want to hide - getting older.

A team from l'ARA has traveled to southern Spain to gain an in-depth understanding of how the mafias that control the hashish and cocaine circuits entering the Peninsula operate, using the AP-7 to transport the drugs to Europe.

"Tell whoever sent you that next time I will cut his throat." The "next time" the three hitmen lodged about fifty bullets into Catherine Isabelle Castagna and her husband, Jacques René Grangeon. The Lyon clan did not like Castagna's threat and they gunned down the couple in their luxurious villa in the Las Lomas de Marbella urbanization. 50 bullets for the 500 million pesetas that Castagna and Grangeon owed them for losing a hashish game. One bullet for every 10 million (60,000 euros). The Lyonnais clan had recently settled a few months ago on the Costa del Sol to control the route between Morocco and France and they were not messing around. It was the autumn of 1996.

Few mafias are as old as the Camorra, born in the 19th century on the streets of Naples. Despite its long history and the extensive coverage it has received—from Roberto Saviano's books to dozens of films—the Camorra remains one of the most active mafias in international drug trafficking. This is confirmed, for example, by the latest anti-drug report from the Italian Ministry of the Interior, which states that it imports hashish and cocaine from Spain, South America, Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. Now, it has been shown that the Camorra's relationship with Catalonia is also close.

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.

Every drug den is different, but some techniques are common. Like the one where a man whistles from the street and, as if by magic, a doorway opens. Immediately afterward, another man emerges, swaying and visibly high, and urinates on the first wall he finds. This scene takes place on a Friday afternoon on Sant Pere Mitjà Street, in Barcelona's Ciutat Vella district. Currently, according to residents, it's one of the city's most critical drug trafficking hotspots.

May 11, 2020, was the first day of the easing of lockdown restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also the day Diego Vargas disappeared, while on semi-release for a conviction for driving without a license. His body has never been found, nor has his cell phone, and there has been no match in international databases with the DNA samples provided by his family for comparison with unidentified victims. His car has also never been seen again, nor has it been detected by any radar or police checkpoint, not even those in place during the pandemic restrictions. The man accused of killing Diego and hiding his body, Luis B., was his partner in a marijuana plantation.

After escaping twice from Mexican prisons, El Chapo Guzmán, considered the leader of the feared Sinaloa Cartel, was extradited to the United States in 2017, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He is now incarcerated in a maximum-security prison in Colorado. However, his capture did not mark the end of the Sinaloa Cartel. Far from it, it is considered one of the main producers of synthetic drugs, including the dangerous fentanyl, as the FBI has indicated in several reports, the most recent last year. Furthermore, the Sinaloa Cartel, also known as the Blood Alliance, has attempted to expand beyond Mexico's borders and has set its sights on Spain as a key point in drug trafficking routes. A new operation by the Spanish National Police exemplifies this.

Kotor is a city of just over 10,000 inhabitants located in southern Montenegro. Surrounded by mountains and the sea, it is a popular tourist destination, perfectly illustrating the rugged and imposing landscape of this Balkan country. But Kotor was also the birthplace of a mafia that was very active at the beginning of the century, primarily involved in drug trafficking. Its reach extended throughout Europe and even extended to the port of Valencia. In 2014, a shipment of cocaine disappeared. According to a report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, it was a Kotor mafia operation that went bankrupt. This shipment sparked an internal war within the mafia, leaving two clearly distinct factions: the Skaljari and the Kavac. The war continues, and in recent months Catalonia has been feeling its consequences.

Catalonia is the major marijuana production center in Europe. It's grown in abandoned farmhouses in Les Garrigues, in the forests of Pallars, in abandoned industrial buildings in the Barcelona metropolitan area, and in houses built on the outskirts of many towns in La Selva. "In Vidreres and Maçanet, there are housing developments where every other house has a cannabis plantation inside," explain the police. However, despite Catalonia becoming the continent's main supplier, marijuana is now also arriving from abroad. The Spanish Tax Agency has seized 1,214 kilos of marijuana from Thailand and Canada at El Prat Airport and the Port of Barcelona. However, this figure doesn't include the 467 kilos that entered through the Port of Huelva and another 642 kilos that Canadian police seized at the Port of Montreal, which were also headed for Barcelona. This amounts to more than two tons of drugs seized in seven operations over the last six months.

"We're going crazy," says a National Police commander, expressing the increasing difficulty of pursuing drug cartels. In a globalized and ever-changing world, drug trafficking also transcends borders and constantly innovates in the ways it extends its reach. Traditionally, heroin has arrived in powder form or in bulk from Afghanistan—estimated to supply 80% of the world's opiate users—via a land route through Turkey. But all this is changing, as demonstrated by the latest discovery in Madrid. For the first time, heroin in pill form has been found in Europe and the world, originating from Colombia. This Friday, the National Police reported the seizure of eight kilos of heroin divided into thousands of pills and the arrest of five people in a parking lot of a shopping center in southern Madrid. It's a new and pioneering format: heroin pills must be diluted before injection, which is how the drug is usually consumed. This format is simply a "marketing strategy," explains Alberto Morales, chief commissioner of the Central Narcotics Brigade of the Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime Unit (UDYCO). This format is designed to "attract a young audience." Furthermore, the pills featured a skull graphic, which is also a marketing tactic, to remind them of brands that use this logo, such as a popular clothing chain. It was all part of a market study, a kind of test, to see how the public would receive this new format. And some of the intended recipients were Catalans: in the wiretapped phone conversations, those under investigation admitted that one of the drug's destinations was Barcelona. Once on the street, each pill would have been worth between eight and ten euros.

The Barcelona Court has acquitted the two Mossos d'Esquadra officers accused of collaborating with a drug trafficking plot The prosecution had requested 18 years and 9 months in prison for the two officers for planting drugs and weapons in the car of a dockworker at the port of Barcelona, ​​Carlos L. However, the court acquitted them because it did not consider it sufficiently proven that they participated in planting the drugs. Furthermore, the court annulled the wiretaps, finding that there was insufficient evidence to justify such measures and that the suspicions regarding their involvement in the scheme had weak supporting evidence. The Fifth Section of the Barcelona Provincial Court, as reported by EFE, also acquitted the other two defendants in the trial held in November: a former Desokupa employee and martial arts instructor, and his nephew, both mechanics. According to the prosecution's theory, both officers were the ones who planted the drugs and weapons in the dockworker's vehicle in June 2016. However, the two officers provided information about Carlos L. after consulting the Mossos d'Esquadra database. The officers, a corporal with over three decades of experience and a former port police officer, had been suspended without pay for four years, but were now back on active duty. The mastermind of the plot

According to the document, both officers, who faced four charges – drug trafficking, illegal possession of weapons, unlawful detention, and disclosure of secrets – bear "no responsibility" in the plot orchestrated against Carlos L., who during the trial He explained that behind this maneuver was David Caballero, the dockworker known as Bubito, who was murdered in November 2014 in Montgat, in the Maresme region, in a drug-related revenge killing. Carlos L. defended the theory that he was a "drug lord" who controlled the port and that he devised the plan against him because he had previously refused to work for him. The prosecutor maintained at the trial that, in accordance with a "preconceived plan," the two Mossos d'Esquadra officers—who were then assigned to the Sant Martí police station in Barcelona—provided "essential" information that they obtained on the afternoon of March 18, 2016, by consulting databases. Based on this information, according to the prosecution, the other two defendants surveilled Carlos L. to learn his routines, until June 15, 2016, when they carried out the operation to plant the drugs and weapons, taking advantage of the fact that he had parked his car in front of a gym in Barcelona. The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) suspected that the whole thing was a planned operation. On the day of Carlos L.'s arrest, a man who identified himself as Alberto called the Sant Martí police station and asked to speak with an officer named "Trini," a policeman known for having informants. Alberto reported that there was a car, a Volkswagen Golf, with drugs and weapons inside in the Francesc Macià area. This call, which was not the usual way informants contacted the officer, and the fact that they referred to him by his first name, raised suspicions within the Catalan police force.

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A major police operation has targeted drug trafficking in Barcelona's Ciutat Vella district. On Monday morning, up to 200 officers from the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan Police) and the Guardia Urbana (Barcelona's municipal police) flooded the streets of Barcelona in a large-scale operation against drug dens and the dealers who supply them. Around fifteen raids were carried out and more than ten arrests were made, according to ARA. The operation followed a lengthy investigation, which began in January, and resulted in the closure of a dozen drug-selling points and the arrest of some of those responsible, thus tackling the root of the problem—a primary objective for the police. According to sources consulted by this newspaper, a man was arrested in an apartment who is believed to be the leader of the network supplying drugs to these dens. A kilogram of cocaine and a firearm were found at his residence. According to sources close to the drug dens, he moved the drugs using addicts, who were also the ones who ended up selling to the drug dens.

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