Alberto Garcia Reyes: Drug traffickers in the Guadalquivir

The marshes are a historically obscure area. There the Guadalquivir traces into unseen corners, unknown hideaways, inhospitable islands, and landscapes of searing beauty. A century ago, the Civil Guard set up its headquarters to monitor the black market in the town of Colinas, today a rice paradise. … With ducks, because from this little observation tower in La Puebla del Río you can see the Atlantic Ocean. But the hieroglyphs marking the fresh waters on their way to Sanlucar have become a cocaine maze. Gone are the times when the biggest illegal acts on the river lay with elver boats, which focused their business on catching elver fry to sell the catch to area restaurants. There has always been a predatory catch of death rattles in the Guadalquivir River which has given flavor to the tables of many homes. The Guardia Civil always slept with one eye open in this half wild, half captivating district. However, this survival-based crime has been destroyed by criminal drug trafficking gangs, who now use fishing boats as fishing structures, take their boats across the shallow areas of the river to Torre del Oro itself and have built nurseries in agricultural warehouses along the entire riverbed to house packages that are then distributed throughout Europe. The river through which all America’s gold once entered is today the channel through which all misery arrives.

The police deployment in Isla Mayor after the shooting of some agents who accidentally crashed into a coca convoy is a decisive turning point in the region. The huge rice field, whose water carpet extends from Correa to Bonanza on one side, and from Los Palacios to Tribuena on the other, is now a small business in a mafia-controlled area. Security forces have improved their resources with drones that allow aerial surveillance of fugitives, more modern boats that can access winding roads that would have been undetectable in the past, and with specialized agencies that pursue the drug trail with absolute selflessness. But cocaine plays in another, more popular category than cannabis. The money generated from this drug allows enterprises to be equipped with the latest technology and pay millions to all members of the chain. This means that the violence practiced also doubles. Drug dealers have weapons of war. They shoot without hesitation. They are going for it. This is why abandoning agents is extremely indecent, as they have to risk their lives to catch criminals who then find themselves faced with very cheap laws. This is extremely dangerous: either a comprehensive and uncompromising plan to combat drug trafficking will be put in place – by legislatures, police and prisons – with special attention to Andalusia, or the mysterious Guadalquivir swamp will end up with more blood than water. Whoever is warned is not a traitor.

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