Last summer some drug traffickers received shots at the Civil Guard in Almería. It was on Thursday, June 9, in the vicinity of the Torre García hermitage, dedicated to the Virgen del Mar. The agents had started an investigation two years earlier and had a well-guarded cache that was going to be produced that day, but they did not find out. they expected them to open fire on them because it had never happened to them before. “They are always armed, but they had never used them against us,” say sources in the case. The shooting ended with 11 people arrested and became the first phase of an operation that led to the arrest of another 20 more people at the end of last year, which has made it possible to dismantle one of the strongest and most dangerous organizations based in Almeria, which has been Assault submachine guns, Molotov cocktails and explosives have been seized, in addition to three tons of hashish. Most of its members are already in prison. Among them his leader, known as El Rifeño due to his family origins in the Rif mountains (Morocco), although he is Spanish.
Those shots were not accidental. They were the organization’s response to a problem they had had two months earlier. Then, after making a stash on the Almería coast, another group of drug traffickers attacked them. They were shot at and even rammed one of their high-powered BMWs to drive it off the road. He was loaded with hashish, merchandise that was taken from them. The Civil Guard found the vehicle the following day in a ditch with two bullet holes, two pistols inside and without the back seats to place the drugs. It is not known who carried out that overturn – as robberies between drug traffickers are called – but it did prompt the gang to hire security measures and even change their usual stash point on El Palmer beach, a narrow coastal strip full of rocks belonging to the municipality of Énix, to the east of the capital of Almeria.
In Énix they have been smuggling hashish since at least July 2020. It was when the Civil Guard first detected the activity of the organization and meant the start of an investigation that has been carried out for more than three years, a time that served to identify its members and learn about their way of working. They learned that they were always armed and that their method was more or less the same: the use of high-speed boats, disembarkation on the same beach and subsequent transfer of the merchandise in high-capacity vehicles —from Mercedes E-Class 60 to BMWs with engines of 300 horses— to a building in the area, which served as a nursery. Over time, the agents followed the activity of the group, both the unloading of drugs and other operations more aimed at logistics, such as the transfer of gasoline for the boats. They also frustrated some landing operations, since their presence forced the drug traffickers to turn around with their cargo despite being about to make landfall.
The information that the caches were always carried out in the same area was not only held by the Civil Guard. Another group of drug traffickers also had it. They were the ones who, at the beginning of 2022, waited for hundreds of kilos of hashish to land, for them to be loaded into high-end vehicles and, during their transfer, looted their rivals by shooting and hitting their vehicles. To prevent future thefts, the organization then decided to make some changes. The first was to modify the location. Two months later, when the boat was approaching the usual point, already close to touching land, it made a turn at the last moment. In this way they tried to mislead anyone who was watching them. It was when they went to the hermitage of Torregarcía. The second was to hire reinforcements for security.
Shootout next to the hermitage
These troops, in fact, had set up a device to keep the new area for the stash under control, usually very quiet. They had installed spiked chains at the entrances to stop police vehicles in case they arrived and even posed as Civil Guard agents to stop an approaching car. They were three people from Almería who had gone to play sports, from whom the criminals took their mobile phones and car keys and retained them. Then numerous patrols from the Armed Institute arrived, which were received with shots. The agents responded —no one was injured— and after the shooting and the subsequent commotion, they managed to arrest eleven people. Some members of the organization managed to escape from the area and went right to a building where they used to keep the drugs and which the investigators had already located. After entering and searching the place, several high-capacity vehicles, military tactical material and a target with bullet holes were found, some from assault submachine guns: in addition to being a warehouse, the place was used for personnel training.
What affects the most is what happens closer. To not miss anything, subscribe.
subscribe
Months later, the operation —called Palma and carried out by the Organized Crime and Anti-Drug Team (EDOA) of the Civil Guard in Almería— concluded in November last year, although it was announced today. Then they carried out new searches and the arrest of 20 more people, the majority of Moroccan nationality and resident in the province of Almería, except for one person in Melilla and another in Barcelona, cities to which they had fled after the first arrests. Several Spaniards linked above all to logistics also fell, and one of them was willing to sell two kilos of explosives to this or another criminal group.
Of the 32 people arrested, 19 are already in prison. Among those arrested is the leader of the gang, El Rifeño, who accumulates two more. One while he was participating in a stash and another because of his links to another drug trafficking organization. He led a quiet life without luxury in the La Urban area, in Roquetas de Mar, an area of houses with swimming pools where his lieutenants also resided. The rest of the gang members lived in flats paid for by drug traffickers in the area. “They went unnoticed and did not flaunt their wealth, but they lived very well,” sources of the investigation emphasize. In addition to their homes, eight workshops and industrial buildings were also registered in the towns of Huércal de Almería, Vícar and Almería capital.
Between the interventions and the police searches, 3,055 kilos of hashish, 30 vehicles -a dozen of them high-end- and different weapons have been seized: a submachine gun and six pistols, in addition to bulletproof vests and military tactical material. Also extensible spike systems to neutralize vehicles, Molotov cocktails, eleven ammonite explosive cartridges and three drug boats, among other effects and computer material that have been analyzed. The operation remains open in the absence of closing some fringes, such as the arrest of some members of the group still in search and capture. The judicial proceedings are in the hands of the Investigating Courts 2 and 3 of Almería and are promoted by the Almería Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
#drug #gang #Rifeño #falls #received #shots #Civil #Guard