Walter Finch
THE leader of one of Spain’s most notorious drug trafficking groups has claimed that a Netflix documentary about his activities violated his rights in an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Convicted narco trafficker Francisco Tejón claimed that a documentary series, thought to be 2020’s La Línea: Shadow of the Narco, deprived him of the presumption of innocence by portraying him as guilty before a court had reached its verdict.
Parts of the hugely popular series explicitly mentions Francisco Tejón’s trafficking gang Los Castañas and focuses on the police efforts to apprehend him and his brother Antonio Tejón.
As part of his appeal against his November 2022 sentence for drug trafficking crimes, Francisco Tejón claimed the documentary was biased in favour of the police and prosecution and hurt his right to a fair trial.
The series was remarkable for featuring high-ranking Policia Nacional officers and criminal prosecutors discussing the case against Los Castañas on the record.
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Francisco Tejón’s appeal described the series as a ‘eulogy’ to the police in La Linea and the prosecution in the Campo de Gibraltar area and that it was part of a ‘bizarre and badly handled criminal policy.’
However, Spain’s Supreme Court dismissed this and other claims in his appeal, stating that the conviction was based on ‘the large quantity of drugs’ found in Francisco Tejón’s home.
Francisco Tejón handed himself in to police in 2018 after a two-year manhunt, but the huge expanse of his trafficking operation, plus a number of overlapping cases, meant he was not tried until four years later.
He led Los Castañas along with Antonio Tejón, managing to control over 70% of hashish trafficking through La Línea at the gang’s peak.
Based out of La Linea and across the waters in Tangier, the brothers were responsible for hundreds of consignments of drugs crossing the Strait.
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Antonio Tejón, who was sentenced last year to six years in jail, was estimated to have amassed a personal fortune of €60 million.
Francisco will now serve his original sentence of three years and one month.
Meanwhile, the epicentre of Spain’s drug smuggling problem has migrated from La Linea to the mouth of the Guadalquivir River near Cadiz and into Sevilla province.
