The Ministers of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and of Justice, Pilar Llop, and the Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz, held a working meeting on Tuesday in which they addressed the strengthening of collaboration between these three institutions in the strategy of fighting drug trafficking in the Campo de Gibraltar and surrounding areas.
The meeting, held at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior on the proposal of its holder, has served to analyze together the evolution of drug trafficking in that region of Cádiz since the first Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar was launched in July 2018. The Plan has been extended twice and currently covers the provinces of Cádiz, Málaga, Huelva, Almería, Granada and Seville.
Grande-Marlaska was accompanied at the meeting by the director of the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO), Manuel Navarrete, and by the deputy director general of Coordination and Studies of the Secretary of State for Security, Carlos Meca. Along with the Minister of Justice, the Secretary General for Innovation and Quality of the Public Justice Service, Manuel Olmedo, has attended, while the State Attorney General has been accompanied by the Chief Prosecutor of the Technical Secretariat, Ana García León.
NEW WAYS TO OPERATE
The effectiveness of the institutional action against drug trafficking, articulated in the field of Interior through the successive special security plans, has forced criminal organizations to modify their modus operandi and extend their range of action to areas further away from that region of Cadiz and its area of influence.
The attendees of the meeting held at the Ministry of the Interior have agreed that these changes force us to seek new police, legislative and judicial responses to recent phenomena such as the use of recreational boats to supply fuel, groceries and spare parts to the ‘narco-boats’.
The ministers and the State Attorney General have also discussed ways to strengthen collaboration in investigations against the economic and money laundering networks of criminal organizations, a plane that has proven highly effective in prosecuting drug traffickers.
In this sense, the meeting has also served to open a line of work that allows to carry out a protocol to guarantee the management and sale of seized goods to drug trafficking organizations.