Number of 'sophisticated' criminal gangs and drug trafficking networks operating on the Costa del Sol rockets

The public proescutor's office has warned in its latest published report of the "worrying increase" in Malaga province of "large" and "sophisticated" criminal organisations, both national and foreign, "that add to drug trafficking the activities necessary to ensure their profits with different and complex financial activities of money laundering", as well as "networks of large drug traffickers that are interrelated".

This is stated in the annual report of the public prosecutor's office relating to the data for the year 2024, presented on Friday. The report warns of the "significant" increase in the number of drug trafficking cases in Malaga, with 28.65 per cent more than in 2023, "which is established as the third province, after Barcelona and Madrid, with the most proceedings in this area".

According to the document, consulted by Europa Press, this is partly due to "the fact that police pressure in the Campo de Gibraltar is shifting the activities of drug traffickers to the Costa del Sol and the number of places in the Axarquía area where rigid-hulled inflatable boats are brought in continues to increase".

The prosecutor specified that Malaga and Marbella "are the main focus of the activities" of these criminal networks, and that the procedures used allow "to observe the networks of large-scale drug traffickers who are interrelated", giving as an example the case of "Albanian and Chinese organisations that collaborate".

The report stressed that the Malaga public prosecutor's office insists on carrying out an early investigation of the organisations' assets, which is reflected in the high number of proceedings for money laundering, which is the parallel investigation of both crimes, and the progress made in the simultaneous prosecution of both criminal conducts.

Reference is also made to "the deficiency of the lack of scanners in the port of Malaga, since, as was pointed out last year, the private company that provides them had a number of employees currently under investigation for collaborating with criminal organisations in the introduction of containers through that port".

The report also warns that drug trafficking "provokes criminality associated with the violence with which criminal organisations act", which is why in many cases the delegates of the anti-drug prosecutor's office take on or collaborate with other colleagues in the investigation of cases for crimes other than drug trafficking, but derived from these.