“We are going all out against the drug traffickers in Huelva”. The warning comes from a Civil Guard officer involved in the operations against drug trafficking that are taking place in the province of Huelva, the epicenter these days of the violent criminal activity being carried out by criminal networks.
With barely 24 hours apart, some hooded men shot dead two women and a minor in the street in the town of Isla Cristina in a settling of scores related to family feuds between clans linked to drug trafficking. Subsequently, some traffickers who were in a drug-loaded narco speedboat opened fire on a Civil Guard patrol boat that was pursuing them in the waters of Huelva.
The weapons used in the shooting in Isla Cristina have already been located and a large operation remains in place to try to locate the killers, who fled on a motorcycle. Meanwhile, the attack on the Civil Guard patrol boat at sea has been clarified in record time, with the arrest of ten alleged drug traffickers who will be investigated by the National Court, according to EL MUNDO.
These ten detainees could be sentenced to terms totaling between 25 and 35 years in prison, as they are accused of assaulting an authority agent, attempted homicide, drug trafficking, and also, in a novel way, piracy, according to sources involved in the case. The crime of piracy at sea is covered by article 616 ter of the Penal Code, which punishes with between ten and fifteen years anyone who, with “violence, intimidation or deception, seizes, damages or destroys an aircraft, ship or other type of vessel or platform at sea, or attacks the persons, cargo or goods on board.”
This is one of the first times that drug traffickers who shoot at law enforcement officers are accused of piracy. The aim is to activate all mechanisms to effectively fight drug trafficking, also following recent complaints from professional associations, such as the AUGC, about the lack of resources for agents. Precisely this Saturday, this group warned about the “maximum risk” faced by professionals working in the Maritime Service, after the shots fired from the narco speedboat.
“The aggressiveness of the drug traffickers will not stop us, but we need resources and personnel. We also remind that this effort must be recognized: we are those who work the most hours and earn the least,” said a spokesperson for the AUGC, who recalled that Civil Guards do not have the same shifts as the Police and also do not have the 35 weekly hours enjoyed by the Armed Forces and other public sector workers.
The Civil Guards of the Huelva Command are making a “huge personal effort, putting in more hours” than they are entitled to in order to try to combat drug trafficking, sources from the Armed Institute told this newspaper.
Experts in the fight against organized crime warn about the extreme violence with which drug traffickers have been operating in the province of Huelva in recent incidents. In the case of the attack on the Civil Guard patrol boat, they did not hesitate to open fire on the officers to protect the hashish shipment they were carrying. In theory, the most violent clans are those trafficking cocaine, which is more valuable than hashish, but in Huelva they no longer distinguish between one type of narcotic substance and another.
As this newspaper has been reporting, the attack on the patrol boat occurred in the early hours of August 17 to 18, when the Civil Guard began pursuing a narco speedboat off the coast of Huelva. During the chase, the alleged traffickers performed numerous “evasive and extremely dangerous maneuvers, putting the lives of the officers at serious risk.” Faced with the attack with firearms, the guards fired several shots to repel the aggression. Although the boat managed to escape, its occupants were eventually located and arrested, after a boarding of their vessel from the Armed Institute’s patrol boat.
In addition to the ten arrests, the agents seized two narco speedboats and 5,926 kilograms of hashish, “dealing a significant blow to one of the criminal organizations operating in the south of the Peninsula,” the Civil Guard assessed. One drug trafficker suffered injuries that are not serious and was abandoned by his companions. He was arrested after being treated in a hospital in Puerto Real.
