El Chicle, member of Os Fanchos clan before Diana Quer's murder
José Enrique Abuín Gey was a member of the Galician drugs clan Os Fanchos before murdering Diana Quer. His cousin, the clan's new leader, has recently been imprisoned.
Diana Quer's killer was a drug-trafficking courier for the Os Fanchos clan before informing on them
According to lavozdegalicia.es, José Enrique Abuín Gey, known as El Chicle and convicted of the murder of Diana Quer, had his first links to drug trafficking as a runner for the historic Galician clan Os Fanchos, then led by Rafael Rivas Souto, his father-in-law and head of the organisation in A Pobra do Caramiñal.
A National Police officer who followed him during those years recalled in 2018 that Abuín began by transporting packages on a small-capacity motorcycle, packages that occasionally contained cocaine. His direct mentor was Rafael Rivas Souto himself, known as O Fancho.
Operation Piñata and conviction for drug trafficking
The relationship was documented judicially in Operation Piñata in 2007. According to the indictment, O Fancho had a batch of cocaine and on 7 August Abuín transported two kilos using a shuttle car as a safety measure. A subsequent search of El Chicle's grandmother's home in Asados made it possible to locate another 17 kilos of cocaine.
The case ended for Abuín with a sentence of two and a half years in prison for drug trafficking and a fine of €300,000. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal against the sentence.
The informing that fractured the clan
The arrest opened an irreparable rift between Abuín and his mentor. El Chicle directly implicated his father-in-law before the judge and claimed that he had transported the drug under duress from him. He stated that his daughter was at O Fancho's house when he received the call to go to Ribeira, where he was handed three bags of drugs. According to his version, he obeyed out of fear that something might happen to the girl.
Rivas Souto denied any involvement with the 17 kilos found and stated that his nephew was not someone he trusted. Within the clan, according to sources close to the case, El Chicle was cast out as a "grass", though family ties would have prevented more serious reprisals.
Coincidence in prison and preventative transfer
The tension re-emerged a decade later. When Abuín Gey entered Teixeiro prison after being sentenced for the murder of Diana Quer, he once again found himself behind bars with the patriarch of Os Fanchos, whom he had reported years earlier. Prison authorities then considered his transfer to another facility and considered options in Asturias or León. He was finally moved to prevent possible reprisals, both for his previous informing and from other inmates.
Collaboration with the Civil Guard that turned against him
The break with the clan would also have opened a period of collaboration between Abuín and the Civil Guard, to whose officers he would have provided information about how Os Fanchos operated. This contact continued over the years and ended up turning against him: when, after Diana Quer's disappearance, he perceived that he was being watched, El Chicle turned to some of those officers to try to find out why. The call only served to intensify the suspicions of those who were already closing the net around him.
The next generation: Rafael Rivas Gey in prison
Nearly two decades after Operation Piñata, the name Rivas again becomes the focus of a drugs trafficking investigation, albeit in the next generation. Rafael Rivas Gey, son of O Fancho and first cousin of El Chicle, is considered by investigators to be the current leader of the clan. He has recently been imprisoned as part of Operation Malladoira, for his alleged involvement in the introduction and custody of 1,410 kilos of cocaine seized in A Pobra do Caramiñal.
His arrest took place on 22 August, ten years after on the same date in 2016, his cousin José Enrique Abuín kidnapped and murdered Diana Quer, aged 18, in the same municipality.
Poaching penalties on Rivas Gey's record
Rafael Rivas Gey's record also includes an administrative penalty for poaching. The Ministry of the Sea imposed a fine of €30,601 on him in proceedings opened in 2006 for two breaches of maritime and fisheries regulations. The first related to carrying out extractive activity without the necessary administrative licence. The second, classified as very serious, was related to the extraction, possession, transport and commercialisation of marine species from zones closed for health and sanitary reasons. The notice published in 2010 does not specify which species were involved, although the amount of the fine shows the seriousness of the breach.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)