There is no two without three. And, on this occasion, there is no three without thirty. On Tuesday night, some French tourists staying at the El Pins campsite in Malgrat de Mar called 112 to explain that they had found on the beach, returned by the sea, a bundle with several packages inside, which could contain drugs. And so it was. Specifically, thirty one-kilogram packages of cocaine with the same identity seal as the last ones found adrift on the Catalan coast: a small card with the image of Jesus Christ, the Bible, and a phrase in memory of a deceased friend.
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After the discovery, past ten at night, and after the first Mossos d’Esquadra patrol confirmed the suspicions that it was drugs, the police activated a public order team from Arro to secure the area until the merchandise was collected.
Investigators suspect the merchandise was lost in transport from the Balearic Islands to Catalonia
Yesterday morning, as with previous discoveries, the Mossos helicopter and a maritime police boat inspected the area in search of more packages. But with negative results.
This newspaper reported in its Wednesday edition the arrival of those first one-kilogram cocaine packages on the Catalan coasts since early August. But there was an earlier appearance, from the same batch of drugs, in Castellón as reported by El Periódico. It was on July 10 when a tourist practicing surfing found on the Moro beach of Alcossebre a package with the same message and identical image of Jesus Christ and the Bible. At first, the swimmer thought it was the ashes of a deceased person, due to the message addressed to the friend promising that “you will always live in the memory of your friends.” But curiosity got the better of the woman, she scratched and verified that the white substance was compatible with cocaine. The Castellón Civil Guard is conducting the investigation and also inspected the maritime area in search of more packages, without success.
On the Catalan coast, the first cocaine package arrived on August 10. That day the sea returned a bundle with highly pure drugs in Badalona, and three days later, another identical one arrived several kilometers away, in Tarragona. On Monday another appeared in Sitges and the next day, Tuesday, the complete bundle with the 30 kilos distributed in as many packages with their small card appeared in Malgrat de Mar.
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Investigators suspect the drugs must have been lost in transport between the Balearic Islands and the Catalan coast. They doubt that the traffickers chose to throw the cocaine overboard and lean towards the hypothesis that some bundles fell into the open sea when the criminals transferred the material from the mothership to the drug speedboat that was supposed to transport the packages to the coast.
For now, the various police sources consulted downplay the significance of the appearances and insist that these are very isolated findings. And that this merchandise, with such an identifiable seal, has been distributed along the coast at the whim of sea currents and tides.
Those same sources suspect that the origin of the drugs is Colombia, due to the phrase and the use of a religious card, a frequent detail in the cartels of that country.
Police files are full of reports with investigations in which traffickers hid cocaine wrapped with religious-themed cards. On another occasion, the drugs traveled to Europe inside large images of saints and virgins.
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