A lost battle

"Here, drug trafficking is totally normalized," says Francisco Mena, president of the Association of Fight against Drugs Field Gibraltar and the province of Cadiz, VICE News. People, says this activist, "see it as something nice" because it generates wealth and well-being in the area and is not perceived as a danger.

However, one of the agents says, they are beginning to detect that some of the leaders of the networks, those who buy the drug, are arming, something that had never been so. A companion of his own body and Bello corroborate it although they circumscribe it to exceptional cases.

"It is necessary to think that in each boat there are 50 families involved: it is not only the leaders of the organization, but of the points, the busquimanos, porters, those who steal the cars that are used later to load the drug, the That keep the boats, those who rent narco-ships, those who then transport hashish to other points in Spain or countries in Europe ... ", says one of the civil guards interviewed.

We, added the other civil guard, "have to cover the whole area [with more than 100 kilometers of coast] with about 14 agents, lucky 20, who cross the most conflictive points by land and sea. Of the agents, "he reports.

"It is a lost battle, sometimes it is better not to intervene because when we arrive at the site of the landing they take it with us and they stone us.We are two against dozens of uncles," adds the other civil guard, who assures us that, in a single night , Up to 15 boats have been detected.

The National Police and the customs surveillance service also have troops, this last body is formed 400 agents for this and other tasks such as smuggling tobacco and money laundering throughout the Andalusian territory. Yet the struggle remains tremendously unequal.

"It takes three minutes to unload the goods and most of the time we can not arrive on time, they have eyes all over the coast and our boats are slower.

For Mena, however, the police fight must be accompanied by judicial efforts and social approach to the problem. In this sense, he considers that "we have to work to prevent young people from getting involved in this, because there are few job possibilities here [in Línea de la Concepción, more than 36% of the population is unemployed, 16 points higher than Spanish media.] Once they enter, they start to earn a lot of money with little effort and it is very difficult to turn back. "

"One point you can get about 100 euros just for making calls for a few hours and a carrier 3,000 for a download," says one of the agents consulted. An exlanchero interviewed by Diario Vice claims that his specialty is quoted very well, at about 5,000 euros per trip.

"Everything is known here and everything is seen"

"I have been in this war for many years and I do not think it is in the interests of this to end. If you could take 100 percent of the tobacco and hashish traffic, the Campo de Gibraltar would sink," says one of the members of the Benemérita .