Walter Finch
A staggering 273 tonnes of drugs were seized last year and almost 6,000 arrested or investigated for drug trafficking and smuggling across 4,698 police operations in all of Andalucia in 2022, according to shocking figures released by the Spanish Interior Ministry.
Running in at a tonne and a third of drugs seized each and every day on average, it also means 16 people were arrested every day for drug trafficking.
The arrested narco traffickers made up 8% of the entire total arrested or investigated by the Spanish police (74,626) for the territory.
Fifteen percent of the drug trafficking total were nabbed in the region around Gibraltar, with hashish from Morocco being the main drug intercepted.
Including cocaine and marijuana, a total of 74 tonnes were seized in Campo de Gibraltar – over a quarter of Andalucia’s total.
The area saw 858 operations with 68% aimed at drug trafficking and smuggling – over two a day, with the rest targeting money laundering and related crimes.
The figures were released as part of the third Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar, which covers six provinces and was established in 2020 to tackle drug trafficking and smuggling.
In June 2022, police made their biggest bust by smashing what was known as the ‘southern cartel’, a group that bribed port workers to bring in huge quantities of cocaine and hashish to the Algeciras port.
They had seized a whopping nine tonnes of cocaine in one swoop in April alone.
In total, 89 tonnes of hashish were seized, along with 28 kilos of marijuana, and 61 people arrested.
The ministry claims the plan has successfully reduced the crime rate to 46.6 crimes per thousand inhabitants, 2.2 points below the national average, according to the ministry.
In the Campo de Gibraltar, the rate was 45.1 crimes per thousand inhabitants, 3.7 points below the national average.
The police have also boosted their numbers to over 24,500 officers operating in the six provinces covering Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva and Jaén.
And there has been a special increase in the number of officers assigned to the Campo de Gibraltar region.
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