20 drug houses spread throughout the Madrid region were dismantled thanks to the latest comprehensive operation carried out by the National Police, which covered the last quarter. It is present in the heart of the Spanish capital and in municipalities bordering other autonomous regions, in high-income neighborhoods and low-income neighborhoods, in apartments and chalets: the map containing some of the locations of these points (11), provided by the police to this newspaper, confirms that the drug trade is ubiquitous. This year, 113 drug trafficking apartments have already been intervened in the area. The number of people involved in drug selling arrested on this latest occasion was 42, but the drug trafficking machinery includes hundreds of workers and collaborators in its networks, 271 of whom have been arrested so far in 2025.
image: National Police/European Press | video: EPV
Agents recognize in a press release released to the media that the cooperation of citizens and neighborhood associations remains essential “to provide an effective and robust response to crimes related to drug trafficking.” Dots sometimes hide next door. In September, agents were able to discover the real purpose behind an alleged association dedicated to the palliative consumption of cannabis and its derivatives. On a site in the Retiro area, close to the park and in the middle of a neighborhood with apartments for sale for millions of euros, the association hid a business under the guise of a club where its members went only to consume – a practice that is legal in Spain if you have permits.
The association lacked a license to cultivate, distribute, and consume cannabis, but narcotic substances were sold in its spaces. “To make the work of the police more difficult, the consumers agreed to sign a document stating that the items they were carrying were not purchased on the premises and that they had brought them for consumption inside,” the National Police explains in its memorandum.
The investigations in the building ended on September 1, with the establishment being entered and searched, where “more than 200 euros in fractional banknotes and US dollars, several packages containing marijuana buds, and about 40 pieces of marijuana were found.” vappers “It contained a narcotic substance and more than 30 cigarettes intended for consumption with hashish.” Under this operation, the association’s president, secretary, treasurer, and two headquarters employees were arrested on suspicion of committing a crime against public health and another related to illegal participation.
Also in Madrid, but in the central region, agents searched a bar where they found numerous packages of drugs. Another case concerns a house in Hortaleza, where there is a marijuana farm with more than 550 samples, where electricity was used fraudulently, which in many of these cases is usually the element that triggers the alarms. There were several dismantled apartments in San Blas that were dedicated exclusively to drug distribution in Paraiso Park. In Villaverde, two neighboring houses were searched, where three kilograms of marijuana, 20 grams of cocaine, and 215 grams of hashish were found.
The drug claws that were cut in this operation also extended outside the capital. In Alcalá de Henares, police discovered, in September, that a store selling medical cannabis, which had already been dismantled for selling and distributing drugs, had reactivated business. In a parallel operation, in the same municipality, a property was discovered in which drugs were sold through “continuous diversion”, to the point that customers gathered at the gate waiting to buy.
Some, like these two cases, are not afraid to repeat crimes or have their actions become too visible. In Aranjuez, another point was dismantled in a house, where drugs were passed through a window overlooking the main street, just as a person passes a pack of tobacco through the window of a cigarette seller. The couple who lived in the house had placed a chair and a bathtub under the window as a signal, so that consumers – and therefore the police – would have no doubt that the place they were looking for was there.
Others resort to old methods, such as distributing camels in parks and public places. In Alcorcón, two people were arrested as they were wandering around a square looking for customers. However, they had complex security procedures that made police work difficult, and they had collaborators who warned of the presence of agents in the area so that distributors could hide.
This latest operation by the National Police, which includes all previous actions, ended with drug sales points in at least eight municipalities in the region. The materials seized varied depending on the conditions in which these companies operated: cocaine, hashish, marijuana, ecstasy, ketamine, and 2CB.