A crowd goes to the Muslim cemetery of Sidi Embarek (Ceuta) where Dris Amar, a 37-year-old soldier who was shot dead at dawn on Monday, was buried this Tuesday Reduan Dris Regragu (EFE)
Tensions in the El Príncipe Alfonso neighborhood of Ceuta, which for 40 years was at the heart of all manner of conflict and crime, have increased exponentially since last May. The most recent episode was the murder of a 37-year-old Spanish soldier in the garage of his home in the early hours of last Friday. And before that, the death of Ibrahim B., a 16-year-old boy who was shot dead on April 16 while sitting in the back of a motorcycle, allegedly being mistaken for another target.
According to police sources, who have made 36 arrests over the past five months – the latest six this Monday, in connection with the soldier’s killing and the attacks on the agents who were operating in the area – it was the frustrated prospect of the resumption of the Movement of goods between Spain and Morocco that has unleashed a life-and-death struggle between the organized crime groups operating in this complicated neighborhood, even as allies. Blackmail has become a currency of exchange: “They blackmail who has money or who speaks, or witnesses to withdraw complaints, whistleblowers, businessmen from Morocco or Algeciras…” say the investigators, who suspect soldier Dris Amar, Corporal, the 54th regular unit based in Ceuta, married with two children, was murdered as part of this macabre criminal logic.
Faced with the difficulty of smuggling drugs across a border that still does not allow the passage of goods, drug traffickers have become direct killers: “They shoot anyone they consider a threat, as well as anyone who is on the opposing side or one of their own.” them the site itself, as a warning to navigators,” these sources point out. Los Piolín and los Tayenas, as they are known by the nicknames of their leaders, are the groups that operate in the area and have branches in Morocco. “They are young people from Ceuta, of North African descent, third or fourth generation, who grew up in the neighborhood since childhood, they are children, cousins or brothers of criminals,” they explain.
Given the expansion both groups gained during the pandemic, as they reached the Los Rosales and Hadú neighborhoods, the police began to put pressure on those areas, cornering them in El Príncipe, from where they rarely leave today , they say. “These are all illegal buildings that are connected by corridors, which makes entry and registration extremely difficult,” say the agents, who were recently greeted with stones.
drugs and human trafficking
Despite everything, the police already consider the Tayenas group dismantled, having arrested all of their main leaders. Three of Tweety’s “lieutenants” have also been arrested in recent days. Among them is one from the family of Los Castaña, historical drug dealers from La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz). The agents are looking for Tweety, “the capo,” who they estimate “has 70 people under his command,” and another of his key associates, nicknamed Laika, in the twists and turns of this neighborhood, where he also lives many humble, hardworking and honest people. Police estimate that 25% of people in the neighborhood are committed to crime.
What affects most is what happens next. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything.
Subscribe to
The criminal activities of these “gun and drone handling” groups combine extortion, drug trafficking and human trafficking. “There are cases where the extorted are drug dealers who are asked for a percentage of the goods they purchase; and cases where we have freed migrants brought from Morocco who were gagged in a house in El Príncipe after paying a thousand euros to be sent to the peninsula, but whose families are demanding 3,000 euros as ransom,” they continue researchers continued.
Recent events have rocked this popular Ceuta neighborhood once again. The government delegation in the autonomous city issued a statement: “This heinous crime will not go unpunished.”
Subscribe to continue reading
read limitless