Police and judiciary demand in Barcelona an international common front against mafias

BarcelonaIt may seem like a cliché, but the phrase "you cannot put doors on the countryside" summarizes to a large extent what the police and judicial fight against large international criminal organizations is like. This phrase, uttered by General Pedro Antonio Pizarro, head of the Civil Guard in Catalonia, has resonated at the College of Notaries of Catalonia, where members of police forces, the judiciary, and the notariat have banded together to face one of the main challenges not only for Catalonia, the State, or Europe, but also for the world: dismantling the economic structure of the mafias.

Because this is one of the main conclusions they have shared: in 90% of police investigations, there is an international dimension; Latin American cartels, Spanish clans, and Italian mafias are more interconnected than ever; they negotiate, they traffic in a drug that is in the spotlight, but, deep down, what they want is to get rich.

From the Civil Guard, through the words of Commander Patrick Montes, they admit that they have been "mistaken" for many years, as they had focused on the number of detainees or how much drugs they seized. Now, they claim, the key is money laundering. "There is often a complex corporate structure to hinder prosecution," warned Vicente Magro Servet, magistrate of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court.

This was stated during a session of the European Notarial Academy, of which Barcelona is the semi-permanent headquarters, which was based on the fight against international crime, with the presence of notaries from all over the world. In fact, they highlighted the example of the Central Prevention Body (OCP) in the field of notaries, which since 2005 has been analyzing communications sent by all notaries in the State and cross-referencing them through a single computerized index. This, police and judicial bodies have explained, greatly facilitates the race against time to fight increasingly organized criminal structures.

The example of CITCO

Pizarro also gave the example of the CITCO (Intelligence Centre against Terrorism and Organized Crime), where the State's main police forces are integrated. This coordination works to the point that, had it existed in the 80s, the terrorist group ETA would not have lasted more than two years, said Pizarro. For the Civil Guard, a European and even international CITCO should be created to be able to fight against these increasingly transnational mafias.

In this line, they also call for the creation of a common international legal framework and a single European or global registry that allows for the harmonization of the prosecution of financial crime and money laundering. "One of the main tools to fight against organized crime is international cooperation and collaboration," said, in the same vein, the National Police chief inspector Juan de Dios García.

In fact, money laundering is already the main reason why the police investigate criminal groups: 35% of investigations are related to this crime, compared to 30% for cocaine trafficking and 13% for marijuana trafficking. In this area, the Chinese mafia has a predominant role. The police believe that attacking the money, preventing the clans from getting rich, is the main measure to be able to fight against them. Investigations against these mafias begin in Spain, but pass through various tax havens that make it difficult to follow, as is often said in police jargon, the money trail.