Hand grenades and teenage hitmen: Spain imports the new drug trafficking violence

Marbella / Malaga / Fuengirola"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.

There have always been settling of scores in Marbella. Violent deaths. Cold-blooded murders. But there were no collateral victims. The violence was between members of the gang without affecting, with few exceptions, innocent third parties. There was a tacit agreement. A balance between gangs to maintain stability in the area. "They were professionals; if someone confronted the police, the mafia itself would sort them out," explains Juan José Gómez Millán, a retired national police officer specializing in the fight against drug trafficking, about the murders of Castagna and Grangeon. Now, on the other hand, all police sources consulted by ARA predict a dangerous scenario: the police have indications that there could be a major escalation of violence on the Costa del Sol, as more weapons are being detected, including grenades and explosives, and the movement of very violent criminals. Also hitmen. "Nowadays, anyone can have access to a long-range weapon. You can take a minor, initiate them, and have them throw a grenade in a public place. You don't need to recruit a Green Beret. We know they are here, there is a constant flow of shipments, and that is what is worrying. They are already here, now it's about seeing who is the first to dare," summarizes a senior official of the Andalusian National Police.

There are people willing to do anything. To defend drugs. To steal them from a rival clan. To kill, if necessary. And many are young, some are thugs fascinated by the adrenaline of carrying an AK-47. Some are even professionals of death. "There are many young hitmen, 15 or 16 years old; they come, kill for 1,000 euros and leave," say two national police officers operating in Fuengirola. This is corroborated by criminal lawyer Lázaro Chico, accustomed to working with members of criminal organizations from his office in Malaga: "For 3,000 euros, people kill." Experts are clear that the image we had in the collective imagination about hitmen is far from reality: "The hitman dressed in a tuxedo, who kills with chloroform, is nonsense."

Every year, security forces operating in Marbella and the towns on the Malaga coast register about thirty violent incidents related to organized crime. The phenomenon is not new, but it is increasing. In 2019, for example, there were three narco-murders in just over two weeks. In the last one, a hitman wearing a Joker mask, imitating the style of Mexican cartels, fired five shots at point-blank range at the victim and fled along the highway, destroying the toll booth's safety barrier.

From Sweden to the Mediterranean coast

"We have hitmen, Kalashnikovs, hand grenades, the Swedes have imported the methods they use there,summarizes a high-ranking official from the Andalusian National Police who leads hundreds of agents dedicated to combating organized crime. There is a lot of violence in Sweden. The mafias are led by second-generation Nordic citizens of Maghrebi origin. They have ties to the Dutch Mocro Maffia, the name given to clans of Moroccan origin that control the cocaine circuits entering through the port of Rotterdam. And they have different rules than what the Spanish police were accustomed to. "In Sweden, at 25 years old, you can lead one of these gangs," says Gómez Millán, and he assures that the Nordic police have identified "13-year-old children" involved in organized crime. "The new players want to control organized crime, they are not romantics of the underworld. They fight for the business, they want to make money, but also power," summarizes the high-ranking official. At any cost. The non-aggression pact between the gangs can explode at any moment. In fact, some disputes between Swedish clans have already ended in murders on the Costa del Sol.

Police are also concerned about the arrival of Turkish clans in Spain, who are also breaking the apparent peace that existed. These gangs are considered among the most violent and export "barrels of explosives" throughout Europe. This very week, one was dismantled that had ramifications in Catalonia and the coast of Andalusia, which paid for drugs with weapons imported from the Balkans. In 2024, shootings also increased by 23% in Catalonia, most of them linked to drugs. In recent months, there have also been several executions, one of which was linked to this Turkish mafia.

The consequences of the war

It's the tip of the iceberg, which could escalate after the war between Ukraine and Russia, as many weapons will end up on the black market and reach the Iberian Peninsula. "Spain has a big problem with weapons," admit police sources. They enter dismantled, through Mediterranean ports and thanks to the connivance of some countries and shell companies that buy and sell weapons to supply criminal organizations. All mafias have weapons to defend themselves from others and avoid "vuelcos", when a group assaults a rival to steal their merchandise. It's the daily bread on the Costa del Sol.

A year ago, in March 2025, an organization dedicated to cocaine trafficking in Mijas, Malaga, was dismantled. But the network had spread throughout Europe and it was an operation that was carried out simultaneously in several countries: A truck with a Polish license plate was intercepted in France, just after passing La Jonquera; a second truck, with 550 kg of drugs, was intercepted in the Zona Franca of Barcelona, where it had been stopped for two days, and a third large-tonnage vehicle was seized in the United Kingdom. When the police operation raided the "guarderia –a villa with a prefabricated house next to it, in Mijas– where the drug traffickers kept the drugs, and where there were still 600 kg of cocaine that they were trying to destroy, they found two minors aged 16 and 17 with two loaded AK-47s under the sofa cushions.

In Europe, there are several examples of revenge attacks with grenades. In 2025, in the French city of Grenoble, a man entered a bar full of customers and threw a grenade, causing 12 injuries. The investigation points to a dispute between gangs. In August 2016, an eight-year-old boy died in a hand grenade attack on an apartment in Gothenburg. It was linked to a conflict between rival gangs in the Nordic drug world. The boy was visiting the apartment and was a collateral victim. Still in Sweden, in January 2025, an escalation of violence occurred with at least 30 drug-related bomb attacks. In fact, in its 2025 report, Swedish police warn that hand grenade explosions are on the rise. The objective is to intimidate. The European Parliament also warns in a 2025 briefing that the throwing of explosives in crowded places in broad daylight is on the rise.

So far, apart from some Kalashnikov shootings that have injured some officers, the narcos are not crossing the red line of threatening the police. However, officers often find tracking devices in their cars, proof that the organizations follow and watch them at all times. They are more numerous, have more resources, and are more heavily armed. "The bulletproof vest is useless," admits an officer, aware of the technical and technological superiority of the criminal organizations operating on the Costa del Sol. "I am not optimistic, I carry three pistols, my people suffer. It's not the same working in Burgos as here," confesses a high-ranking police official, who acknowledges that the first step drug traffickers take is to try to "buy them."

Deep down, what drug traffickers seek is power. A power that can sometimes also be symbolic: Gómez Millán recalls that in 2008 he arrested some Russian narcos and at their home in Marbella, they kept a chasuble belonging to Cardinal Richelieu. "That is power," he states. And weapons are also power: the same police officer, in other searches of traffickers' homes, has found folders with all the models of Russian warplanes.