Drug trafficking in the Campo de Gibraltar

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 26^th 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

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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.