Drug trafficking in the Campo de Gibraltar
Stacy Dooley meets Kate del Castillo
During recent breaks from writing
an autobiographical work which makes reference to my involvement at a national
level in the prevention and treatment of drugs in the 1980’s, I discovered the Netflix
series of monster Spanish television epics
which cover the development of drug production in Columbia, Mexico and Morocco
and its transportation into the United States, and in particular into Europe
via the Straits of Gibraltar, the short stretch of water between North Africa,
the Gibraltar Peninsular and southern Spain.
One of the first epics
experienced was “La Reina del Sur”, a fictitious one hundred plus episodes, two
season series about how a young woman becomes one of the wealthiest and
powerful drug traffickers in the world, played by the actress Kate Del Castillo
who had moved to the United State to further her career after having become the
star of telenovelas in Mexico where she was the daughter of a leading actor.
I watched the series because
the opening sequence features a brief shot of a speed boat heading towards
Gibraltar, the home of my birth and care mother’s, their five sisters and four
brothers, one of whom managed the Bland shipping line office in Tangiers, Morocco;
the ferry which continues to operate between the former British city and the
British self-governing peninsular fort and naval port of Gibraltar, and the
Spanish territory of Ceuta and the largest Spanish mainland port of Algeciras
which is at one end of the area surrounding Gibraltar, known as the Campo de Gibraltar
in the Andalusian province of Cadiz, and a total population of 27000, spread
over 1500 square kilometres. Algeciras has a population of approximately 120000,
San Roque 30000, Los Barrios 25000, Tarifa 18000, Jimena de la Frontera 9750 and Castellar de la
Frontera 3000.
The community closes to the
Gibraltar Peninsular, La Linea de Concepcion has over 60000 people ‘crowded’
into 19.3 square kilometres, with one report
alleging 80% of the working population unemployed, an estimated 100 drug
gangs involved in the importation from Morocco and from Columbia and, Mexico
via the container and shipping port of Algeciras. Gibraltar is the most densely populated with 32000 within its
6.7 square kilometres and with most of the space forming the spectacular Rock.
The dispute between Britain
and Spain over the future sovereignty of Gibraltar has been exacerbated with
the decision to leave the European Economic Community in situation where over
95% voted to remain.
The ferry between Morocco,
Gibraltar and the Campo was the subject of the 1953 comedy, “The Captain’s
Paradise with Alec Guiness and his traditional English wife in Gibraltar(Celia
Johnson) and the night club singing wife in Tangier (Yvonne De Carlo). The
ferry is also featured in La Reina and the two season series on the
establishment of a Spanish drug squad in the Costa Del Sol, “Brigada Costa Del
Sol” to combat tobacco smuggling which became a way of life for many
Gibraltarians, including one of my uncles who persuaded his younger sister, my
care mother, to assist him before the went to the United States in
1930’s and became a citizen.
In the 1970’s ordinary fishing
boats were used to bring contraband tobacco onto the beaches of the what became
the Costa Del Sol, and once the tourism and nightlife developed along the coast,
hashish grown in Morocco proved more lucrative as then did cocaine from Columbia and Mexico. In 2013 the Gibraltar
paper Panorama featured an article commenting that although political attention
was focussed on the smuggling of cigarettes across the border to La Linea,
Britain appeared more concerned about tobacco smugglers going direct into
Spain. One Edinburgh born individual was
involved with smuggling over 28 million
cigarettes, without paying British duty estimated a £4million. The series Brigada ended with the Spanish Drug
squad members debating going undercover to Gibraltar to capture the
“Englishman” behind the trafficking.
In 2018 when the political
declaration on the future arrangements between Britain and Europe were published, an article in Euro News stated that Spain was
threatening to veto any agreement without changes on a number of issues
pointing out 26% of Gibraltar’s annual budget arose from tobacco duty with 72
million packs officially entering the territory each year over 2000 packs per
resident! 10000 Spanish Campo citizens work in the Gibraltar tourist industry
and shops and stores each day from the Campo whose livelihood were threatened; Spain wanted joint ownership of the airport
because of its wartime expansion into disputed land and thousands of Spanish
companies registered in Gibraltar because of its lower corporation taxes. The
Campo residents are reported to be able to bring back one packet of the cheap
Gibraltar cigarettes a week while newsagents can sell several packs of 1000 to
tourists per transaction.
I had to wait until midway
during the first series of La Reina before the action moved to the bars and
streets of Gibraltar and a meeting with an associate who arranges the creation
of businesses to front the trafficking organise the money laundering. This was
more fact than fiction.
In 1995 Gibraltar attempted to
tackle the misuse of its financial
facilities with the Drug Trafficking Act and the following year a
Financial Intelligence unit was established bringing together Gibraltar Civil
Servants, one of whom was a first cousin, customs officers which involved
another first cousin, and the Gibraltar Police. Despite the good intentions of
the authorities on both sides of the border,
a BBC radio four programme in 2013 estimated over the previous four
years tobacco smuggling from Gibraltar to Spain had doubled to 139 million
cigarettes
In May 2007 the International
Monetary Fund published its 200 page report assessing the work in Gibraltar to
prevent money laundering and combatting the financing of terrorism and
concluded it was doing a good job keeping ahead of the attempts to bypass the
checks on the system and on through collaborative working with Spain and other
nations.
The establishment of a new
initiative to tackle the problem in the Campo with the deployment of 152
National Police Agents and the 204 members of the Spain’s Civil Guard working
the authorities in Gibraltar from August 2018 has proved successful with the
English edition of “Spain The Journal” reporting over 216000 kilos of hashish
had been sized, 8000 of cocaine, 835 of marijuana, 501 of heroin and over a
million packs of cigarettes in less than 18 months, in addition over a thousand
vehicles, 221 craft and over 5000 arrests.
In September of last year, the
Gibraltar Chronicle reported on a joint operation which had led to the dismantling
of a network of one gang from the Campo and another operating on the
Guadalquivir river. The was further progress in December when the paper
reported the arrest of someone known as the Lord of the Port on suspicion is
bringing hundreds of kilos into the port of Algeciras. The investigation had
involved work with the authorities in
Columbia, Morocco, France and other European Countries. Over 191 tonnes of
Cannabis were seized in the Campo in 2018 compared to 100 tons in 2016.
The problem which the authorities
face world wide is that the greater their effectiveness the more ruthless the
gangs become.
In April 2019 the Olive Press,
a paper published in English in Spain reported the leader of a gang of about 50
in an interview with El Espanol, said that the impact of the national
initiative would lead to more violence and the use of major weapons because
income was being reduced, with people collecting the bales from the boats into
vehicles paid 3000 euros a time with the
boat pilots between 20000 and 30000 a trip. The headline warned of the use of
Bazookas.
Spanish police stopped a gang
who were supplying weapons to traffickers operating in the Campo with 20
firearms sized, 124000 rounds of ammunition, smoke grenades and night vision
equipment. In a separate raid 27 firearms were found.
A year before the Atlantic
published a twenty page article, “Gangsters of the Mediterranean” about a
Russian living on the Island of Majorca who was said to be a “high ranking
figure in one of Russia’s powerful criminal organisations. He was said to be
one of dozen high level gangsters from the former Soviet Union who settled in
Spain in the 1990’s and 2000’s involved with murder, kidnapping, extortion,
robbery, drug arms trafficking. The heroine of La Reina, Teresa Mendoza,
develops a close and at times dependent relationship with a cultured and
sophisticated Russian with operatives who kill without hesitation on command.
The province of Almeria,
further along the Spanish Mediterranean coast, once known as the setting of
Western films and blockbusters such as Lawrence of Arabia and Patton, has
become an ever increasing area of
plastic covered greenhouses providing western Europe with fruit and vegetables and using migrant labour. In the Spanish series “Mar De Plastico”, the
income of some owners of the greenhouses is significantly enhanced when using
vehicles loaded with produce as a cover for taking drugs to other parts of
Europe and on return trafficking girls back from a former soviet state to work
as prostitutes in the bars and clubs, with one series focussed on the long term
implications when the girls in one truck are asphyxiated. Eastern Europeans
murder and torture to retain power
The trade in migrants from
Africa into southern Europe has grown in thousands each year because of the
short crossing where using enhanced speed boats and jet skis take minutes. AP news published a 26 page summary of the
rescues and the deaths over the most recent
years. In March of this year 89 people were arrested, suspected members of a
crime ring smuggling people and drug cross the Straits of Gibraltar.
The previous August more than
50 underage young people were rescued,
and 330 migrants rescued by the Moroccan authorities in the Straits with
Spain rescuing another 300. In May, 9 of 12 migrants had drowned with 549
rescued in the Straits. In December 2018 two minors tried to cross using a
truck tyre. In November 2018, a dead woman was found among 650 and few days
before there were 17 dead among 100, with a dead baby among another 520. In April 4000 euro was the price of crossing
by jet ski. In 2017 500 had crossed in a flotilla of 46 boats
On Sunday evening 26th
of April, after commencing to write about the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the British
Government, the rest of the world and on me, I checked to see if there was
anything worth watching on television in addition to a concluding episode of
the final eighth season of Homeland, discovering that ITV had recreated the Dutch
police detective Van De Valk, the original five season series set in Amsterdam
with Barry Foster. Mark Warren takes the leading role in the first season of
three 90 minute episode.
What then caught my eye was
that Stacey Dooley was presenting one of her courageous, potentially dangerous
and insightful investigations, titled Costa Narcos which immediately was given
priority attention, speculating if it also featured Gibraltar and the Campo in
addition to the Costa del Sol.
For reasons explained in the
autobiography about my early years, although my background is Gibraltarian,
Spanish and Maltese I have only visited Gibraltar twice, the first occasion in
2003 to bury the ashes of my care mother in the grave of her parents in the
extraordinary colourful cemetery between the airport and the sheer face of the
Rock facing Spain. In 2004, three years before by birth mother reached 100
years, I visited again on my own bringing back hundreds of photographs to show
her the homeland which she had not visited since leaving in1938, although she
had visited Spain. I stood on my own at the top of the Rock on a hot bright day
looking down on the community covering the small strip of land around the base
of the peninsular rock and saw the life I should have had, would not and wept.
Part of me wanted to sell up and move there for the rest of days, reading every
book available on the history and the people, watching every documentary and
feature film to reclaim my identity. The tears were of grief from the sense of
loss and a sense I would not return. I had already made my peace with my birth
mother when her world collapsed with the avoidable death of the
sister who had been my care mother.
Before 2013 I could only find one documentary of significance which featured
Gibraltar when Johnathan Dimbleby led
the 1988 edition of “This week” which
posed questions about the killing of three terrorists in a shootout on the
Streets of Gibraltar “Death on the Rock”.
In 2013 filmmaker Ana Garcia
returned to her birthland and made a 55 minute perspective “Gibraltar My Rock”
shown on BBC Chanel Four, one of the programmes retained on my Sky Box. I also
kept for several years the 15 episodes of the three seasons of “Gibraltar - Britain
in the sun Channel Five’s Travelogue 2013-2015.
Two semi fictional film dramas
were based on events during the War “I was Monty’s Double” with John Mills, and
“The Silent Enemy”, with Lawrence Harvey as the Naval Lieutenant Lionel Crabb,
also covering events during the second World War. In addition to the fictional
comedy “the Captain’s Paradise,” I
remember seeing a re-run of “Operation Snatch”, a 1962 comedy in which Terry
Thomas has to go behind enemy lines in the War to rescue an Ape. There is also an
opening sequence in the James Bond film which I also retained, unintentionally
deleting, and rechecking to ensure nothing has been missed I discovered that comedian
Mark Steele did a funny 30 minutes stand up in the cave theatre in the middle
of the Rock broadcast on Radio 4 and still available online.
What I did not expect from
Costa Narcos was the coincidental connection with several aspects of La Reina
del sur and the mini-series documentary, by its star, Kate del Castillo, the
Day I met El Chapo.
Stacey Dooley commenced the
programme joining with the special national team of agents and police first deployed
in 2018, flying in the specially equipped helicopter and joining the crew of the adapted speed boat
with three engines and a top speed of150 kilometres both of which are features
during the first season of La Reina.
The Queen of the South, Teresa Mendoza, has a relationship with the most skilled and
daring of the pilots bringing shipments from North Africa to the Campo, sometimes
having to avoid the Spanish pursuers by escaping to a Gibraltarian beach. In
one sequence Stacey Dooley participates with a similar cat and mouse chase with
a smuggling craft hoping it will attempt to land in the Campo and not
Gibraltar. One load of contraband captured from of the speedboats was found to
be worth over 6 million euros and media reports reveal that several successful
boat loads of hashish make crossing every day together with migrants.
The
town of La Linea which borders Gibraltar
reflects the impact of the drug trade dominating the community and which became
a national scandal. In 2018 the British Independent newspaper reported that 20 drug
smugglers had stormed into the local
hospital to remove an injured trafficker from custody. The investigating judge
was intimidated by a group of forty thugs. Papers also reported that the
previous year about a 100 locals and stoned the police. Only about 10% to 15% of the volume of drugs
was being stopped. The Guardian newspaper also described La Linea as Spain’s
most troubled town reporting the same events as the Independent.
In
August 2019, the Spanish El Pais reported a conversation with Andalusia’s anti-drug
prosecutor Ana Villagomez with the headline quote “Drug traffickers are
practically idols the Campo de Gibraltar”, similar situations explored at length in
Spanish epic TV series about life of the Columbia Pablo Escobar, founder of the
Medellin Cartel, and Mexicans Joaquin
Guzman El Chapo and many others who used part of their wealth to
provide services and goods for communities ignored and exploited by central
governments. Two other series “Narcos” and “Narcos Mexico” over 5 seasons,
recount the successful role of the
actions of United States Drug
Enforcement Agency following the torture and murder of one of its undercover
agents, Enrique Camarena Salazar in 1985. He was married with three boys.
It
appears there is need for the drug masters to justify their criminality, the
murders and the torturing because of poverty and corrupt governments who
personally prosper from the trafficking and participate in a culture where
heads of police, arm and drug enforcements accept bribes in a whole chain of
payments. One problems is that eliminating one individual has no effect as he
is immediately replaced by one those previously plotting to do so.
The
head of the Spanish civil guard responsible for policing at Algeciras was found
to have worked for traffickers for 20
years. The prosecutor for Andalusia also
explained the extent to which whole communities were participating in drug
distribution including small children and young people. In a separate report
five Police Customs officers were arrested for their involvement in smuggling
tobacco from Gibraltar with charges of forgery, bribery, money laundering,
membership of a criminal gang and failure to pursue crimes.
However,
the prosecutor also admitted there was horrendous backlog of cases. In another
report 500 hundred convicted traffickers were in the same local jail.
The
underlying reality is that the excessive misuse of alcohol and tobacco, both
legal, and of the various mind and emotion altering substances by sections of
the population, continue to provide those investing, producing and distributing
with ever increasing great wealth. The Mexican Guzman became a billionaire
featured in Forbes Magazine. Civic authorities, especially those in democratic
states don’t want to admit situations which fuel the ambitions of opposition
political parties or threaten the local economy, a situation encountered when
as a member of the Department of Health
Drug advisory services in the 1980’s there was denial about an area having a
problem.
On
one visit it was necessary to spell out in our report to the Secretary of State
the reality as aging hippies were growing pot on smallholdings; commuting city
slickers brought back cocaine for weekend
house parties or visits to local nightlife; some brought back stuff from
Amsterdam after trips on the local ferry to enjoy the legal provision; a gang
of bikers had arranged their own supply; a gang in a midland city had arranged
supplies for casual prostitutes using a direct train link to add to pleasure
offered; although US airman at a local base were threated with
being sent home in disgrace after buzzing the market town in an upside down
nuclear bomber there were reports of at least one General Practitioner willing
to privately help for an appropriate fee, and perhaps the most worrying of all
was when we learned that the London
enterprise supplying the girls to the workforce building a new nuclear power station
were also enabling them to get high.
The
notion that that the problem was all about professional criminals ended when at
one conference, a senior member of a police specialist drug unit confided during
a social break that a judge, several
other lawyers and businessmen were the funders for the drugs into one of
Britain’s major cities
Most of the drugs arriving at
Algeciras arrive from Columbia and it as
this point that Stacey followed in the footsteps of Kate de Castillo. The
Mexican actress possessed an informed knowledge of the role of El Chapo in her
country and made a comment on her Twitter account which he picked up and
through his lawyer contacted to say he was interested in the idea of a film
being made which told truth of his life and
the extent to which he worked with a senior official who became a senior
political player seeking to become President.
An escape from prison in Mexico would be arranged by the Presidential
hopeful on the basis that subsequently recapturing him would enhance his
political ambition which other developments were threatening undermine. While
he was again on the run Kate was
contacted and offered a personal meeting
to discuss the film and in turn she was approached by Hollywood’s Sean
Penn who offered to accompany, without, according to Kate confiding that he
would travel as an accredited journalist to do an article for an agreed
publication.
The article attracted world
wide attention and the Mexican government turned its wrath on Kate to an extent she felt
her life under threat, charges were laid against her by the Mexican
government and her career appeared to have ended. Part of the problem is that in
2017 she commenced a new series playing the role of wife of a Mexican
president which was followed by a three part documentary mini-series, “The day
I met El Chapo: The Kate del Castillo Story” in which she allows family,
friends and associates to question what she did and why alongside her frank
explanation admitting mistakes, but also pointing out .differences in
interpretation and accuracy.
This was the background when on Sunday night as
Stacey’s investigation was ending she announced she was going to
Columbia to gain the perspective of
those making present day fortunes from
the trafficking. She was able to participate in one police raid on the homes of
a father and son Algeciras which involved
teams totalling 80 officers finding 700000 euros in the base of the snooker table. She was able to interview
a man who described himself as a facilitator paying the crews 25000 to 30000 a
trip with the pilot earning 50000. The man admitted to making 3 to 4 million for his personal use
which was probably a significant underestimate.
Stacey was able to interview
one of the lawyers who worked for traffickers who explained why and how he got
his clients off. He did not defend those engaged in heroine because this led to
addiction whereas hashish and cocaine was recreational and when challenged over
doubling of deaths in Britain from cocaine he said that was the responsibility
of the users. He used two approaches to defend his clients. The first was to
challenge the process looking for any indication that their constitutional
rights had not been followed and secondly he looked for weaknesses in the
presentation of evidence
.
The impression given however
unintended and in accurate was of someone
concerned about whether his clients were innocent or guilty or if they were also murderers and torturers
of others in industry.
There was a different level of
honesty from the head of customs at the container port of Algeciras. He
explained he did not have the resources
to check every one of the 7000 containers that arrived every day although this
begged the question of the number that arrived from Columbia. He then admitted
the corruption which covered the crane drivers, the lorry drivers and the
others involved in knowing which containers were required to be removed before
any random inspection and where the details came from the suppliers. So like
Kate del Castillo Stacey set off to meet a Columbian drug master although I
suspect more clearheaded and well prepared.
She knew from her contact with
Spain’s special services about the level weaponry involved including military
standard weapons used by governments in war, and that professional hit men were
being employed. One supply of guns had
been tracked to a Dutch Crime
organisation. A group of professional were identified as coming from Sweden
with African backgrounds.
There is not much that will
shock Stacey anymore having met the perpetrators and their victims of horrendous crimes from
throughout the world before, but she appeared amazed by the openness and scale
of the situation. The Columbian contact said he was one of eight in one part of
Columbia moving drugs with a combined street value of £640 million a
month. One container of bananas been stopped at Algeciras where the there was
more drugs than bananas, 8.7 tons of cocaine in total. In order to always get
ahead one development was to deconstruct the drugs to form the base cartons of
the fruit which were then reconstructed, having become undetectable by the
sniffer dogs.
The programme closed with the
information that half a million doses of cocaine were supplied in London for
use every day according to forensic scientists at a London University- more
than twice that in Barcelona and more than five times as much as Amsterdam or
Berlin. The London market was estimated to
amount to 1 billion British pounds a year.
