The Narcotics Group of the National Police of Mérida was, at least between 2018 and 2021, a “criminal organization” dedicated to hashish trafficking, among a wide range of crimes. This is the main conclusion of the investigation carried out by the Internal Affairs Unit and the Instruction Court number 3 of the capital of Extremadura, whose head, magistrate José Agustín Agenjo, has just issued the order closing the investigation.
The judge proposes to try six National Police officers, the five who made up the Narcotics Group of Mérida until their arrest three years ago, and a sixth officer. At the head of the group was, according to the investigation, an inspector, Francisco Javier N., whom his subordinates called “Rambo”, but who really led the criminal plot was Javier G., “El Canario”, another police officer of the team, as stated in the summary.
“The Narcotics Group acted as a criminal organization in which all members participated in a concerted and coordinated manner, dividing tasks or functions,” the judge wrote in his resolution, to which elDiario.es had access. “The predominant role of police officer Javier G. is revealing, who effectively exercises the management and coordination functions that the Group’s inspector should have,” the magistrate added.
As elDiario.es revealed in June 2023, National Police agents are accused of keeping traffickers’ money in the registers in the absence of the judicial secretary; stealing thousands of euros of material for marijuana plantations and then delivering it to his confidants; causing drug deliveries to add arrests and seizures; informing his collaborators that other agents were investigating them; and also sharing marijuana plantations and their profits with traffickers in the area.
The illicit activity of the police officers was so extensive according to the judge that he was forced to make an effort to summarize and present an overview of the facts in the self-summary of the investigation. In describing the crime of criminal organization, Judge Agenjo explains what he calls the “modus operandi” of the group: “It was a question of having a series of informants, collaborators and protected persons who provided essential information to proceed with the arrest of persons linked to the world of drug trafficking.”
“Police operations authorized [continúa el juez] that the protected trafficker carried out the criminal activity with the agreement of the Group, while protecting it from investigations carried out by other research groups. This type of collaboration with drug traffickers (“omission of the duty to prosecute crimes”, the judge describes) gave rise to “another type of collaboration in which the group itself participated in criminal activities, including the cultivation of drug plantations”.
They carried out all these activities as a concerted group, but the judge also attributes the cocaine trafficking to the Canaries. “Apart from the rest of the Group, he proposes to LSP [un narco] “working together to facilitate cocaine transactions in the Mérida region,” the magistrate explains. Together with another alleged drug trafficker, the police officer “manages to specify” the price of this drug, the judge specifies in his order dated September 4.
Police offered other groups to traffic in Merida
The power in the world of crime of the national police officer Francisco Javer G., El Canario, surpassed that of other organizations that operated without the advantage of uniform and badge. The agent even invited other groups to settle in the capital of Extremadura and offered them advantages. “He actively participated in drug transactions, offering his services to suppliers of illicit goods to establish themselves in the city of Mérida and facilitating the buyers of the producer in the city,” says the magistrate in the order closing the investigation.
The National Police’s Internal Affairs Unit asked the judge in 2021 to authorize the installation of a hidden camera in the offices of the Narcotics Group and the tapping of its members’ phones, including a Trojan virus that would allow access to their WhatsApp conversations before the punctures began.
This initiative by the Internal Affairs marked the beginning of the end for the group, whose members spoke openly about their crimes, among themselves and with those under investigation for drug trafficking. It also included the torture of a prisoner in the Canary Islands who, after learning that the person arrested had said that all of Mérida knew about the policeman’s “business”, went down to his cell and beat him. In another case of ill-treatment, two other police officers from the group were arrested because they had witnessed the events and had done nothing.
A cat called “Narcotics”
The conversations in a chat that the police named “Narcotics” are eloquent. On July 15, 2021, the Narcotics Group carried out a search within a police operation. While this was taking place, the head of narcotics, Francisco Javier N., warned in the WhatsApp chat “Narcotics”: “Here you can do the rabúo.” The Internal Affairs believes that the expression refers to the fact that they can “steal effects” from the registered address. When in doubt, Javi Canario replies: “I’m going to get sick.”
Ten police officers or former police officers of the National Police were charged in the case, but the judge ordered the proceedings to be archived for four of them because he did not find sufficient evidence to support the accusation. One of them is Javier G.’s father, el Canario, who was also a narcotics police officer in Mérida and who worked with his son in the past.
In addition to the six police officers on trial, there are nine other defendants, outside the National Police. Magistrate Agenjo considers Gema S., wife of police officer Javier “El Canario”, as a lucrative participant in the conspiracy, for having benefited from the money illegally obtained by her husband. And as a civil responsible, he designates the State since six of the defendants have the status of public agents.
