From drug traffickers to bounty hunters on the Costa del Sol

These two French people were old friends, long-time partners in shady deals within the Parisian mafia. “They are pretty serious criminals.. They were already around 45 years old. “They were not children,” sources from the Drugs and Organized Crime Unit (Udyco) of the Costa del Sol National Police told ABC, stressing that the two drug traffickers knew how to move in the shadows, without being detected. And its recent history proves it.

Despite their numerous criminal records for serious offenses in France, such as drug trafficking or illegal possession of weapons, they went unnoticed on the Costa del Sol until October 1, 2024. This is the day when They traded traffic for rewards. That night, outside a restaurant in Marbella, they kidnapped another drug dealer in an attempt to get a good sum of money in exchange for his release. “Here on the Costa del Sol a businessman is not kidnapped for extortion or anything like that, here they are all alternative goods businessmen.” underline the sources.

The target was crossing the restaurant parking lot in the The Golden Mile of Marbella with another man, when he was attacked by a group of people. The attackers began a brutal beating, which left the drug dealer’s companion on the ground, while the other tried to escape in the car. He was unable to do so, as the kidnappers ran through a car to prevent him from leaving.

Once he was trapped, with no way to escape, they forcibly removed him from the vehicle and put him in the attackers’ car. Then they left. “In this kind of case, it is normal for the family to try to resolve the problem themselves when contacting them, if they notice that physical attacks are very brutal or they can’t release him, that’s when they usually go to the police,” say the sources, who affirm that in this Marbella case the only reason was “to demand a ransom.”

The French knew he was a trafficker who had money. He was a well-known guy among criminals. “They thought they could get a good amount of money”say investigative sources, who claim that this is why he was kidnapped. The kidnapped man was eventually released, but the echoes of Operation Wolverine put the authorities on the trail of these two gangsters.

As the investigation grew, they were once again identified as being linked to another violent incident. In this case it was in Benalmádena. The two French people organize the assassination of two Swedish traffickers. “We think they put a price on the heads of these two Swedes, they identified them and They tried to collect the money they offered to kill them», They say of Udyco Costa del Sol, which was responsible for this double assassination attempt after a machine gun attack on December 26.

The assassination attempt began with a simple message on encrypted social networks used by organized crime, such as Telegram chats. There, one of the Swedish organizations put price ahead of two competitors. He offered a good sum of money in Swedish crowns to those who would kill them. The two Frenchmen had seen them on the Costa del Sol and located them, so they decided to be the ones to get paid to track them down.

In the days leading up to the assault, they were responsible for monitoring and preparing for the operation, as well as monitoring the two targets they wished to eliminate. “The two victims were half-hidden in this house in Benalmádena. They They knew they had a price on his head.», Specify the sources consulted, which explain how on the afternoon of December 26, 2024, the two Swedes requested an Uber. The group of hitmen saw the moment to kill them.

When they left the hideout and got into the Uber, they tried to block their way with a stolen car with twisted license plates and three hooded individuals armed with machine guns got out. The two Swedes, knowing they were in danger, ran and jumped off an embankment. “They could have been killed in the fall, but he didn’t even give them a ball», say the agents responsible for the investigation, who remember that despite the gunshots they only had bruises.

The call came to the emergency room in the afternoon because of a shooting and the two Swedes, targets of the mafia, had to be taken to hospital for injuries resulting from the fall. “The firefighters had to rescue them from the ravine”the agents remember.

The group of hitmen had come from France expressly on behalf of the two gangsters in order to commit the murder. “They were looking for work for their people. They didn’t make them directly. They joined forces with others. During the kidnapping, they did the same thing. “They looked for a group to carry it out,” say the sources consulted by Udyco, who managed to connect the Operation Mother-in-Law assault to the events investigated on Wolverine.

For months, triangulations were carried out, groups investigated and security recordings examined, until the French were found and irrefutably linked to both assaults. Then they went to locate him to monitor his movements. It wasn’t easy. “They were obsessed with security”they explain from Udyco Costa del Sol.

The agents were able to verify how, when they had to go to an appointment, they could spend three hours traveling throughout the province of Malaga with a car, checking that they were not being followed, until finally attending that appointment. Then, when they arrived there, they did not park there, but were able to leave the car two kilometers away and walk following the same safety measures they had with the vehicle. “They could even spend hours driving around early in the morning, just to check if they were being watched or if they were becoming increasingly dangerous. standing in a dead end street for an hour“, alone in the car, looking for who could go there”, say the officers who arrested them.

“It was an extraordinary thing. It was already practically a question of mental illnessso much so that we always said that the moment they were arrested, they were going to rest. They were slaves to these security measures and this way of living,” they add from Udyco, who confirmed that although they had become bounty hunters, they had not stopped drug trafficking.

The search groups reached an industrial warehouse in Antequera, where logistics compatible with drug trafficking were being developed. On May 26, one of the trucks that had left this warehouse with packages returned from Amazon stopped. They were hidden inside 374 kilos of hashish with the Real Madrid shield as the identity seal of the organization. The two French people are the axis on which this affair also pivots, recorded in the police books under the name Operation Barbas.

Investigations intersected between the Udyco groups of the National Police, until more than a year after the kidnapping in Marbella, the French and their partners were arrested in the various businesses they had launched on the Costa del Sol. Complex investigations that put an end to the adventures of these gangsters on the Andalusian coast. The agents entered their home to arrest them and there they discovered an arsenal at Aurélien’s house. It was him gunsmith guard of the organization.

The National Police seized 21 weapons ready to usesome with silencers and a large amount of ammunition. They were hidden in every room of the house. It was he who supplied the weapons for the operations they carried out on the Costa del Sol, both for drug trafficking and to attack other drug traffickers in exchange for rewards for their services.