The "Northern Syndrome" exhausts agents fighting drug trafficking in southern Spain
Police and Civil Guard officers combating drug trafficking in the Campo de Gibraltar and Huelva live in constant hypervigilance. Seizures have soared: 65,000 kilogrammes of hashish and 11 tonnes of cocaine in 2025.
Drug trafficking in the south: agents who share neighbourhoods with traffickers
In the coastal municipalities of southern Spain, agents pursuing drug trafficking cross paths daily with the same traffickers at the supermarket, at school or in restaurants. This forced coexistence has a name: the "Northern Syndrome", according to elpais.com.
The term, used by police and Civil Guard officers stationed in hot zones such as the Campo de Gibraltar, Huelva, Cádiz and Málaga, describes the permanent hypervigilance with which these agents operate. It is the same state of alert that those who fought ETA in the Basque Country once endured.
The figures illustrate the pressure to which they are subjected. In Huelva, 65,301 kilogrammes of hashish were seized in 2025, compared to approximately 20,000 the previous year. In March and April alone this year, operations in that province resulted in 11 tonnes of cocaine being seized, according to data from the Unified Association of Civil Guard Officers (AUGC).
The accumulated tension is summed up in the words of a Civil Guard officer stationed in Huelva: "It is only a matter of time before they kill us".
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)