The 300 fall, the Barcelona youth group that attacked with machetes and katanas

BarcelonaThey called themselves Los 300, but there were many fewer. They posted videos singing songs about the strength of their group, lyrics that also sought to attract new members. They also published images of fights, assaults, weapons, and the symbolism that united them. They met in the squares and parks of Sant Martí, Sant Andreu, or Nou Barris, first to commit uncivil acts, but, over time, the level of violence increased, to the point of carrying out assaults with machetes or swords. They also dealt drugs to finance themselves as a group, imposing rules and tests to become one of them and recruiting minors to turn them into their executioners. Over the months, they became a youth gang, one of the most active in Barcelona.

Months ago, as this newspaper reported, the Mossos d'Esquadra have been monitoring some youth gangs that have re-emerged in certain areas of Barcelona, but also in the provinces of Tarragona, Girona, or Lleida. In the Catalan capital, there are between five and ten active gangs, which differ from those of the 2000s because they are more heterogeneous, with people of many nationalities, although the majority are Spanish and children of second and third generations of migrants. In fact, last Monday night they shot and killed a 15-year-old minor in Parc de la Pegaso, and the Mossos d'Esquadra are investigating it as a conflict within these youth gangs. There is already a man arrested and deprived of his liberty for his alleged involvement in this crime, who would also be linked to the gangs.

Inspector José Ángel Merino of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Mossos appeared this Wednesday at a press conference to announce the dismantling of the gang Los 300. He did not link it to the Pegaso crime, about which he said they continue to work "against the clock," with various hypotheses, but none confirmed. However, the police do link Los 300 directly to dozens of victims, some members of rival clans, others random, and acting with "extreme" violence. They are accused of up to four attempted homicides with bladed weapons, all linked to fights with other youth groups.

The investigation was a joint effort by the Mossos and the Guardia Urbana of Barcelona and ended with the arrest last May of 18 people, six of them minors. All detainees are men, except for one minor who is a girl. Of the adults, seven have been remanded in custody and two minors have been committed. During the searches carried out, a firearm was detected, although they had not used it in any of the confrontations.

Leaders and soldiers

It was a young group, made up of people between 15 and 29 years old, which was structured and hierarchical, with a leader, coordinators, and "soldiers", in Merino's words, normally the minors. The superintendent of the Guàrdia Urbana, Juan Guzmán, explained that they used violence as an "instrument of control", a violence that served to dominate the territory and commit robberies, but which was sometimes simply gratuitous. They acted in groups, at night, with their faces covered and with bladed weapons. Although they frequented the Parc de la Pegaso area, it was not their operations center, which was rather located in Sant Martí.

The group's funding came from marijuana and tusi – also known as pink cocaine, although it is made from a mixture of various synthetic drugs–. In the latter case, they even cooked it themselves in improvised laboratories. Afterwards, again, it was the young people who were responsible for distributing the drug, as they face fewer legal consequences. "They are now completely dismantled," Guzmán celebrated.

Merino wanted to dissociate this youth group from the so-called Latin gangs, as he specified that they are multicultural groups, much more heterogeneous than those of the 2000s, most of them raised here. That is why he said that talking about Latin gangs can be stigmatizing. In the case of Los 300 – which they deduce is inspired by the film about Spartans–, they also had no international contacts with Latin gangs deployed worldwide, although they might follow their aesthetic. The two police officers stated that they will act with "total firmness" against these gangs, although they also specified that it is a multi-causal conflict that must also be addressed from other areas. Investigations like these allow the Mossos, said Merino, to obtain more information about these groups and improve their approach.