This was written in the State Attorney General’s Office Report 2023a new blow to the Ministry of the Interior for an action that is currently the subject of an investigation by the Justice. They are still trying to find out who is responsible for having sent the agents in a zodiac against the drug boats that ended the lives of two of them.
This fact, in the opinion of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and specifically of the Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office, “shows the impotence of the State “faced with criminal networks that must be dismantled immediately.”
In this edition of the Prosecutor’s report, a section on drug boats has been included. “They remain Morocco’s main hashish transfer instrument and they proliferate along the entire coast, especially but not only in the strait.
The branch of the Public Prosecutor’s Office dedicated to drug trafficking warns that the impunity of criminals is such that “they are visible in broad daylight or at night, sailing through the mouth of the Guadalquivir, in the marinas or fishing docks of Barbate, Conil de la Frontera, Sancti Petri, etc.
“Social networks and all the media show the audacity in the display of these drug boats by drug traffickers,” he continues.
In addition, the Prosecutor’s Office warns of the violence with which “on several occasions” drug traffickers “attack the ships of the State security forces and agencies.” This happened in February in the port of Barbate.
State security forces and agencies have long denounced the lack of resources to board and detain these ultra-fast vessels. The prosecution is aware of this: “They generally carry several 350 hp engines; they have very sophisticated navigation and communication systems and they hide or find refuge in international waters, in Morocco and also in Portugal, where these vessels are not the subject of illicit trade.”
Lack of resources
The increase has been enormous. “Among the observation areas indicated by DAVA are mainly Melilla/Nador, Sanlúcar/Huelva, Almería, Motril/Granada, Barbate/Cádiz with figures that exceed 230 in less than 6 months.”
In addition, the authorities are failing to get rid of them or protect them. As published by EL ESPAÑOL, the Ministry of the Interior acknowledged in a report that it “does not have the material means or qualified personnel” to seize, store and eliminate the seized material.
This is also reflected in the annual report of the anti-drug prosecutor’s office, which highlights the difficulty of “assessing, managing and destroying” seized drug boats and the “alarming situation of accumulation in storage places.”
Civil Guard agents are accumulating this material in different ports, and they have problems with “delays in evaluations, in the authorization of destruction by the courts, so the costs of storage and destruction are very high.”
The accumulation of drug boats, especially in Algeciras and Cádiz, is causing “a collapse” for the prosecution. At the beginning of 2024, around 80 boats and around 150 engines were stored in Cádiz (Puerto de Santa María), adding to the almost 300 boats in the province of Algeciras.
