It was the beach lifeguards who discovered it. Last Monday the 10th, on the Pescadors beach in Badalona, the rescuers spotted a suspicious package floating a few miles off the coast. It was almost five in the afternoon and both the beach and the water were packed with bathers trying to beat the heat of this infernal August. Later it was confirmed that the doubts of the sea workers were well-founded. It was a one-kilogram package of cocaine adrift that the Mossos d’Esquadra recovered.
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It had been a long time since a package of cocaine arrived on the Catalan coasts. In fact, it is more common for the bales that appear stranded among the rocks, or caught in fishermen’s nets, to be hashish. But this package also had something particular, a message and an image.
Although it is known that criminal groups usually “mark” their merchandise to differentiate it, these are usually letters, initials, some number, or even a photograph. On this occasion, the owners of the drug used an image of Jesus Christ extending an arm next to a book that must be the Bible, accompanied by a phrase in uppercase letters: “YOU WILL ALWAYS LIVE IN THE MEMORY OF YOUR FRIENDS, COMPADRE.” A message to a third person, a friend, to whom, in some way, the criminal organization paid its particular tribute.
The photograph of the package, which accompanies this information, was quickly shared among police groups. It became clear that a message of this nature was not usual. In fact, a senior Mossos d’Esquadra officer with considerable experience even suggested the possibility that the package was deliberately thrown into the sea as an offering to the deceased friend. It may seem crazy, but it would not be the first time that certain criminals are buried or accompanied at their funeral with items that were characteristic during their life: a firearm, beers, and some drugs for the journey to the next stage.
The tribute theory, which already had few supporters, completely faded two days later when an identical package appeared, but on a beach in Tarragona. And there was even a third appearance, and not exactly divine, this Tuesday on a beach in Sitges. The same package again, with that same image of Jesus and one kilo and two hundred grams of cocaine.
On all three occasions, and practically until daylight allowed, the Mossos helicopter and a maritime police boat were inspecting the three beach areas to find more packages. But without success. The last one located in Sitges was also recovered by a bather who handed it to a lifeguard, who opened the package to see what it contained and immediately handed it over to the Mossos.
The Mossos suspect that the latest findings are from a drug transport between the Balearic Islands and the Catalan coast
Three packages of cocaine, from a disturbing same batch of drugs, in barely three weeks and arriving on the Catalan coast at the mercy of currents and sea tides.
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The police do not have any official count that sums up all these findings that periodically wash up on the coasts. Their origin is varied. It could be merchandise lost during a journey, or that the crew themselves threw it into the water for a thousand reasons, from feeling at risk to a mechanical problem. The other option, which is not so common on the Catalan coast, is that the merchandise is left anchored at specific points on the coast, waiting for a second transport to pick it up; and that due to weather conditions or even the action of marine fauna or fishermen, the anchorage broke and the merchandise floated, eventually reaching the coasts.
On August 3, it was an open water swimmer who stumbled upon a one and a half kilo package of hashish off Castelldefels beach. The next day, the maritime police patrolled the area for the possible appearance of other bales, without success.
Two days later, the scene was l’Ametlla de Mar. A fisherman discovered a package protected with several turns of insulating tape among the rocks. On one of the backs was written the inscription RAPTOR. The man also handed the merchandise to a Mossos patrol, which inspected the area for more identical packages, but without success. On this occasion, the drug was also hashish.
Hashish is the substance that most frequently arrives on the coast: the latest packages arrived at l’Ametlla and Castelldefels
On August 10, the sea returned the first package of cocaine in Badalona, and three days later, another identical one arrived many kilometers away, in Tarragona. The last of that batch appeared on Tuesday in Sitges. Investigators suspect that the drug must have been lost in a transport between the Balearic Islands and the Catalan coast.
These findings coincided with another, much more significant, that also appeared this August on the beaches of Cádiz and to whose image this newspaper also had access. It was a package protected with several turns of insulating tape containing 30 kilos of cocaine. A good haul. The bale also had its own seal, a playing card: the five of red diamonds.
On those Andalusian coasts and especially in the Campo de Gibraltar area, where the State is waging a complex and tough battle against drug trafficking, the arrival of bales of hashish and cocaine is more common. During chases of drug speedboats, the crew does not hesitate to throw the material overboard if they think they are going to lose. Hence, even without being official, those seizures range between 400 and 500 kilos per year.
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