Spain concerned as increasingly younger people involved in Strait’s drug trade

by Maria Jesus Corrales

The average drug trafficker in the area around the Strait of Gibraltar is increasingly younger and involved in more specialised criminal activities, the delegate of the Spanish government in Andalucía, Pedro Fernández, warned this week at a meeting of the operational coordination committee of the Special Policing Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar.

“The incorporation of increasingly younger individuals… into the drug trafficking structures operating in the Strait” highlighted the need, he said, to “eliminate the social foundations’ that sustain the narcotics trade and “lead to the normalisation of criminal activity.”

Mr Fernández stressed that all the different authorities in matters of social and economic development, employment, housing and training had their roles to play.

“The Special Policing Plan is giving good results, but the structures of drug trafficking have to be attacked holistically, and police action must be complemented with social measures that give the local population a life with dignity that does not make drug trafficking attractive,” he said.

He also stressed the need to “design specific employment plans, plans for social intervention in specific areas, and promote education and training so that this activity is not attractive to young people.”

In addition to the youth of today’s drug traffickers, he raised the fact that criminal activity in the area around the Strait is becoming increasingly specialised.

The criminal gangs are progressively specialising, offering services such as distribution networks, logistical support, packaging, money laundering schemes or anti-surveillance expertise to other organisations.

He also warned that drug gangs are using more and more sophisticated means.

“The systems for supporting criminal activity are becoming more and more complex, the gangs are increasingly more violent and aggressive and hitherto legal activities are being introduced into their dynamics,” Mr Fernández said.

On top of this, Spain is facing a concentration of criminal activity in the provinces of Almería and Huelva, in addition to that in the Guadalquivir river area, and ports re-emerging as a chosen smuggling route via vehicles and trailers.

An example of this was the seizure of 13 tonnes of cocaine in the Port of Algeciras last June.

Mr Fernández explained that the Spanish government is “steadfast in its support of police operations; in the provision of human, material and technological resources; and in measures that promote coordination between all police and judicial agencies, but adapted to the new challenges and lessons learned after more than five years of fighting this complex phenomenon.”

Since the Special Policing Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar came into force in 2018, 1.75 million litres of fuel, 8,687 vehicles - 7,000 land and 1,682 sea-going vessels - and no fewer than 2,314 weapons have been seized.

The figures up until November 2024 show that "28,445 people have been arrested and 2,344 tonnes of drugs have been seized, [of which there were] 2,003 tonnes of hashish, 168.2 tonnes of cocaine and 168.5 tonnes of marijuana."

These statistics, Mr Fernández argued, confirm that the Policing Plan has become "an essential tool in the fight against drug trafficking and organised crime."

As to police staffing, numbers have been raised by 11.1% since 2018, with an average of 1,200 officers reinforcing the Andalucían provinces affected by the policing plan’s complements every month.

Cooperation with other countries’ anti-narcotics agencies has also increased and, in 2024, the Spanish government has allocated 37 million euros to the fourth Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar, of which €17.5m is earmarked for increasing staffing levels and €19.5m for technical resources, police intelligence, technological materials and investigative support.