In Isla Cristina, these days should be talking about the traditional festival of the Virgin of the Sea, but that is not the case. Since Sunday, when the triple murder occurred, many conversations have been about the few details that have emerged from the shooting, an investigation that remains under court secrecy but whose main hypothesis is that it is a settling of scores between two families involved in drug trafficking. The conflict between the two clans dates back to 2024, when a man was shot dead in the Torrejón neighborhood, in Huelva city, and two other people were injured. The alleged perpetrator, nicknamed Baba, was later arrested in Gijón.
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Almost two years later, if this line of investigation is confirmed, the reprisals would have arrived. The two women murdered on Sunday were, according to the investigation, the mother and sister of that man. The latter, 39 years old, was eight months pregnant and the baby she was expecting also died. To them, the death of a 16-year-old minor must be added, who, according to the Government’s deputy delegate and the mayor of Isla Cristina, had no kinship or relation to the two women, and two more injured: an 18-year-old young man who was seriously injured, son of the pregnant woman, and another person who was shot in a leg and is out of danger.
But this event, besides the harshness of the facts, highlights a constant concern for those who pursue drug trafficking gangs: the firepower and degree of organization that some of these networks have reached. On Sunday, two hooded men arrived at the El Rocío neighborhood on a motorcycle and one of them opened fire with a long weapon. They then fled and, shortly after, the motorcycle was found burned in a pine forest near the entrance to Isla Cristina. Next to the vehicle, a weapon was found that sources close to the case identify as an AK-47. The investigation will have to determine if it was used in the attack.
This is unbearable. Drug trafficking cannot run rampant in Andalusia. It is evident that crime is gaining ground and that resources are lacking”
Juanma Moreno
President of the Junta of Andalusia
The scene is no longer new to investigators. “They have war weapons, assault rifles,” warned the Anti-Drug prosecutor of Andalusia, Ana Villagómez, on Cadena SER. The prosecutor spoke of an increasingly “radicalized” drug trafficking and “very professionalized” organizations, capable of functioning “like a company,” with people specialized in different tasks. A structure that, as she explained, makes investigations more complex.
But the problem does not end with arrests. Villagómez also demanded harsh sentences once the accused go to trial. “We work with a 19th-century law,” she stated, and warned of the “sense of impunity” generated by the current system. The prosecutor called for a modernization of Justice, more resources, and greater international cooperation.
Villagómez was not specifically referring to Isla Cristina nor linking her words to the triple murder. She was talking about a broader reality, that of drug trafficking which increasingly worries Andalusia, a picture also referred to by the president of the Junta, Juanma Moreno, who described it as “unbearable.” The regional leader has demanded more resources from the central government to combat this scourge. “Drug trafficking cannot run rampant in Andalusia,” he stated.
They demand more resources in the face of the professionalization of drug trafficking
For her part, the third vice president of the Andalusian administration, Carolina España, spoke along the same lines and demanded “more police resources and drastic measures” in the face of this “social alarm.” The PP of Huelva has also requested more personnel and resources for the province and has proposed recovering OCON-SUR or creating a similar structure against organized crime.
Let us remember that OCON-SUR was one of the specialized units deployed by the Civil Guard within the Special Security Plan of the Campo de Gibraltar, created to concentrate resources and investigative capacity against drug trafficking networks. The Civil Guard itself points out that the Special Plan has allowed, since 2018, the seizure of 1,700 tons of drugs, one million liters of fuel, and 1,300 drug speedboats, in addition to arresting 17,000 people.
Drug trafficking has changed. It has professionalized, gained organizational capacity and, in some cases, also firepower. This is the scenario described by those who work to combat it and those who demand more resources. While these requests to the central government continue, in Isla Cristina the Civil Guard continues searching for the two hooded men who arrived, fired, and fled. The town remains shocked and with one word, reprisals, that returns again and again in conversations. The investigation will have to determine if the shooting was really a settling of scores and if there is a risk that the chain of violence will continue.
Surveillance has been reinforced in this coastal town while investigators try to reconstruct what happened: if the crime was really a settling of scores between two families opposed since 2024, who ordered the attack and who are the men who carried it out. In that confrontation, there had already been threats, shootings from rooftops, another shooting with one dead and one injured, and intimidating acts with shots fired into the air in Huelva city.
Isla Cristina: a coast well acquainted with drug speedboats
Between the Guadiana and the Carreras, Isla Cristina looks out to the Atlantic and Portugal through a network of marshes, channels, and canals that complicate surveillance. It is also an environment that organizations dedicated to drug trafficking have learned to exploit to move, hide boats, or refuel.
This is determined by the Ministry of the Interior, which has documented in various operations the use of this environment by drug trafficking support networks. The most recent, Operation Ánfora, began after the Civil Guard detected an increase in the arrival of drug speedboats to the Carreras estuary to refuel. The operation ended with 44 arrests and the seizure of 16,250 liters of gasoline, as well as two handguns, two carbines, and four boats.
Investigators discovered that part of that fuel was stored in garages located under apartment blocks before being transported to the boats. The fact gives an idea of how deeply drug trafficking support networks can integrate into the daily life of the municipalities where they operate.
But the concern goes beyond the geography of Isla Cristina. In other recent operations, arsenals have been found that show the firepower of some organizations. In Seville, an investigation against drug trafficking allowed the seizure of four Skorpion submachine guns and two AK-47 assault rifles, as well as drugs and ammunition. In Málaga, the National Police located 36 long guns, 11 handguns, and 11 hand grenades in an operation against an organization dedicated to arms and drug trafficking.
These are different operations and are not related to the triple murder in Isla Cristina. But they reflect the concern about the professionalization and armament of these organizations. Some gangs no longer only have the means to introduce and distribute drugs. They also have logistical structures, specialized people, and, in certain cases, war weapons.
None of this allows us to affirm that there is a drug trafficking gang behind the crime, that is precisely what the Civil Guard is now trying to determine, but it does allow us to understand the scenario in which the shooting occurs and the concern that the advance of increasingly drug trafficking-linked violence has generated for some time on the coast of Huelva.
