The State Security Forces and Corps deployed in the six Andalusian provinces in which the III Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar operates carried out in 2022 a total of 4,698 police operations against drug trafficking and smuggling, which resulted in 5,827 arrested/investigated for these crimes and 272.9 tons of drugs seized.
This III Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar was established in Instruction 3/2022 of the Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Pérez, which established a period of validity from 8 March 2022 to 31 December 2023 and extended its territorial scope of application to all the provinces of Almería, Seville and Granada, which joined those of Cádiz, Huelva and Málaga in which it was already applied since 2020.
Of the 4,698 police operations carried out last year in these six Andalusian provinces, 4,278 were directed against organizations dedicated to drug trafficking and smuggling (91 percent of the total) and 420 were directed against money laundering networks and other related crimes (the remaining 8 percent).
Regarding the Campo de Gibraltar, the police operations carried out in this region were 858 in 2022, 68 percent for drug trafficking and smuggling and the remaining 32 percent for money laundering and other crimes.
Police pressure on drug trafficking and smuggling networks in the six Andalusian provinces where the special plan operates led to the arrest or investigation of 5,827 suspects in 2022, representing 7.8 percent of the total of 74,626 arrested or investigated by the National Police or Civil Guard for their alleged involvement in criminal offenses of all kinds in that territory.
In the Campo de Gibraltar region, the total number of people arrested/investigated for all criminal offences last year amounted to 4,653, of which 721 were for drug trafficking and smuggling, 15.5 percent of the total.
272 TONS OF DRUG
The police also seized 272,936 kilograms of drugs in the plan ' s six provinces, of which 218,482 kilograms were hashish, 22,321 were cocaine and 32,133 were marijuana and other narcotic substances.
Of the total drugs seized, 74 tons were apprehended in the Campo de Gibraltar region, mostly hashish (78 percent of the total), followed by cocaine with 21.5 percent.
The crime rate of the six provinces covered by the III Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar was in December 2022 of 46.6 criminal offenses per thousand inhabitants, 2.2 points less than the national average rate.
In the case of the Campo de Gibraltar region, last year the crime rate was 45.1 criminal offenses per thousand inhabitants, 3.7 points below the national average rate.
MORE EFFECTIVE
During 2022, the National Police and Civil Guard personnel in the six provinces in which the Third Special Plan of the Campo de Gibraltar is applied exceeded 24,500 personnel, which has achieved an average degree of coverage of the job catalogue of 91.7 percent, four points above the national average.
These personnel have also been reinforced last year with agents from central police units or other territories through temporary secondment or service commission procedures. In the six provinces in which the special plan is implemented, in 2022 this reinforcement was of 1,361 agents, 677 of the National Police and 684 of the Civil Guard. In the Campo de Gibraltar region, this reinforcement at the end of last year reached 323 officers, 172 of the National Police and 151 of the Civil Guard.
In addition, the two police forces have addressed structural and organizational measures last year to strengthen the groups and special units of investigation of organized crime. The National Police has assigned 42 jobs in temporary assignment to the Central Drug and Organized Crime Unit (UDYCO), which have collaborated with the Special Response Groups for Organized Crime (GRECO) deployed along the Andalusian coast.
As far as the Civil Guard is concerned, during the last quarter of 2022 the teams of the Organ for the Coordination of Operations against Drug Trafficking (OCON-SUR) have been integrated into the organizational and permanent structures of the different commanders of the territory, so that the operational structure of investigation that was born on a temporary basis has been consolidated to ensure its adequate permanence over time.
Along with the organic growth of the staffs and reinforcements deployed by both bodies in the territory covered by the special plan, the Secretary of State for Security has invested 10.8 million euros over the past year in material, technological resources and support for the research and intelligence activities carried out by both police forces.
FIVE YEARS OF POLICE ACTIVITY
The Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar was promoted in July 2018 with a territorial scope of application limited to that region of Cadiz and that remained in force until July 2020, at which time the second plan extended it until December 2021 and extended the territories of application to all the provinces of Cadiz, Huelva and Malaga.
The organic growth of the workforce, the policy of police reinforcements and the investment in material and technological means to strengthen police capacities for intervention and research has required a budgetary investment amounting from 2018 to more than 29.8 million euros. By the end of this 2023, that amount will have exceeded 40.7 million euros.
This investment effort has allowed the State Security Forces to carry out a total of 14,010 operations from July 2018 to December 2022, 11,679 focused on drug trafficking and smuggling groups and 2,331 directed against money-laundering and other crimes related to illegal drug trafficking.
In the same period, the total number of people arrested/investigated for these drug trafficking or smuggling offences is 13,411, and the volume of drugs seized amounts to 1,359,112 kilograms: 1.211.241 of hashish, 60.543 of cocaine and 89.775 kilograms of marijuana and other illegal substances.
In addition, and in the same period, the Security Forces have seized a total of 8,614,318 packets of tobacco that were to be smuggled into the country, 635,273 marijuana plants discovered in different illegal plantations discovered in those six provinces and 822,455 liters of gasoline that should have supplied the ‘narco-boats’ that transport the drug to the Spanish coast.