Marlaska puts his Campo de Gibraltar Plan as an example before the European Coalition against Organized Crime

MADRID, 7 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has defended the Special Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar as an example to follow due to the "incontestable" results in a meeting held this Friday before his colleagues from the European Coalition against Organized Crime in Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands.

Specifically, it has highlighted that since the beginning of this special plan, on August 1, 2018, and until last April 30, the police activity deployed in the territories included in the Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar has allowed the arrest and investigation of more than 10,840 suspects and the seizure of more than 1,400 tons of drugs.

The members of the National Police and the Civil Guard in the Campo de Gribaltar have grown by 31% with the governments of Pedro Sánchez: the region has gone from having 1,956 agents of both bodies in December 2017 to having 2,579 in August 2022, according to insider sources. As regards Algeciras specifically, the city has gone from having 1,201 agents to the current 1,363.

Precisely the mayor of this town, José Ignacio Landaluce, has convened a Local Security Board for the two violent deaths that occurred in the municipality this week --his relationship with drug trafficking is being investigated--, in addition to asking for more and better organized agents, especially "if any structure is changed, such as the Civil Guard's Anti-Drug Trafficking Coordination Body (OCON)".

The minister, for his part, defended at the meeting held in Amsterdam that the results of the Campo de Gibraltar Special Plan are "incontestable". "The number of investigations and arrests has increased and the pressure on the organizations established there has caused an appreciable change in the way they operate," he pointed out, as reported by the Interior in a statement.

Grande-Marlaska has valued the "creation of synergies" between the different police forces, customs and the judiciary, "so that the action of criminal gangs is increasingly difficult."

He has also advocated developing new technological tools that allow access to the information handled by criminal groups through the Internet to ensure that crime "is not profitable."

Grande-Marlaska has opted to strengthen international cooperation, especially with Latin America and the Caribbean, an action that, according to what has been advanced, will be one of the Spanish priorities during the next Spanish Presidency of the EU in 2023.

Grande-Marlaska has opted to strengthen the European coalition at the meeting held in Amsterdam, which was also attended by the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, the Executive Director of Europol, Catherine De Bolle, and the President of Eurojust, Ladislav Hamran .

The countries of the European Coalition against Organized Crime have given the green light to the new multi-year action plan, which updates the priorities of the four blocks of action adopted in 2021: logistics hubs and maritime security; economic and financial dimension of organized crime; technological innovation and, finally, international cooperation. To these four blocks another generic one of operational needs has been added.