Laurence Dollimore
A CADIZ drug trafficker has warned of more blood on the streets of Spain if drug trafficking is made harder.
In an exclusive interview with El Español, the hashish trafficker, who has been working in the business for 12 years, said drug bosses will turn more to debt collecting if their trade routes are increasingly affected and profits dry up.
The self-described ‘boss’, referred to as Oscar, made the comments after a crackdown by cops in the Campo de Gibraltar has seen around 3,000 arrests since last July.
Some 407 extra Policia Nacional and Guardia Civil troops were added to the area while 100,000kg of hashish were seized and many gangs disbanded.
“If the guards do not leave soon, the deaths will come,” Oscar, who has 50 men working for him, told the Spanish national newspaper, “I do not have doubts. The traffickers are going to start killing each other because of the debts.
“I do not owe anything to any of my boys, but other bosses do to theirs.”
Óscar has been the leader of a gang which operates in the surroundings of the Campo de Gibraltar region, in Cádiz, for three years.
“If the market flow does not reopen, those in the lowest echelons, the ‘points’ (vigilantes), the landlords or the drivers will want to collect pending payments for work they have carried out,” he explained.
“If the bosses refuse, someone will pay with their life because people have to eat and they do not know how to do anything else in life other than move hashish. “
Before becoming a boss, Oscar worked for other organizations including the infamous Antonio and Francisco Tejón, or ‘Los Castañas’.
Police consider Antonio Tejón, the youngest of the brothers, the greatest hashish drug trafficker in history.
“It’s true, he’s the Dad;” Oscar confirmed, “He’s the Pablo Escobar of La Línea. Nobody has had more balls. I learned from him and moved up the ranks.”
The crackdown has led dealers to move operations towards the Guadalquivir River and Huelva, Oscar adds.
The prolific trafficker, who in two months cleared 1,800kg of hashish, pocketing €2 million in the process, has just been released from prison and is awaiting trial after being picked up at the end of last summer.
But he warned that firearms would ‘whistle’ if the Strait of Gibraltar was not reopened fully.
“The chiefs have a serious problem if the Strait is not reopened,” he told El Español, “If they do not go back to work, the weapons, even bazookas, will begin to whistle, especially in La Línea.”
Oscar also revealed how much he pays each of his workers depending on which part of the operation they carry out.
The drivers who transport the bales he pays €15,000 per trip.
The people who collect the bales on the beach are paid €3,000 each while the boat drivers get €20,000 to €30,000 each.
Oscar’s first job in the hashish business was as a ‘watcher’ on a beach. They paid him €800. Then, he says, ‘I went up like foam.’
He went on to blast other smugglers for operating in the daytime and thinking they were ‘untouchable’.
“They are the cause of what is happening to us right now.”
Oscar spent six months inside the notorious Botafuegos prison in Algeciras, where he said were at least 500 local dealers and traffickers.
He said that they all knew each other and that ‘there was not a fight’ between them and that whoever wanted to had access to money, cocaine, hashish and mobile phones.
But in a last warning, he warned of the coast of southern Spain turning into Medellin if his trade is continually interrupted.
Speaking about head honcho Antonio El Castaña, who has been locked up since last summer, he said: “Everyone is waiting for him to leave prison. If he starts moving hashish as before, the business will be reactivated for everyone.
“If not, this is going to be Medellín, with dead people left in the streets.”
