Anti-drugs prosecutor warns of corruption among judges and prosecutors linked to drug trafficking
The deputy anti-drugs prosecutor for Andalusia warns that organised crime is infiltrating judicial institutions. Cocaine money finances the corruption of security forces and infrastructure.
Institutional threat
According to diariodesevilla.es, Ana Villagómez, the deputy anti-drugs prosecutor for Andalusia, warned on Saturday about a new dimension of drug trafficking: the infiltration of judicial and security institutions themselves. During a working session at the La Toja Forum in O Grove (Pontevedra), Villagómez posed a direct question: "Who says there is no corruption among judges, among prosecutors?". The warning reflects a shift in the strategies of organised crime, which no longer merely operates at ports and drop-off points but seeks to penetrate state infrastructure from within.
The prosecutor assured that corruption linked to organised crime "is advancing by leaps and bounds" in Andalusia, a territory that functions as the main gateway for drugs entering Europe. Criminal organisations have growing financial resources to attempt to corrupt members of security forces, judicial officials and those responsible for airports and ports.
Criminal money and structural transformation
The growth of cocaine has exponentially increased the income of drug trafficking organisations. Villagómez pointed out that this increase in money gives the clans greater capacity to acquire weapons, logistical means and networks of collaborators. The problem, according to her analysis, does not end when a shipment is intercepted. The structures that allow the clans to continue operating after losing a consignment are the true target: "The financial and logistical side must be attacked".
The mafias operating in Andalusia have evolved towards complex business models. They no longer follow the traditional pattern of a family clan dedicated to importing and distributing drugs. They require vessels, vehicles, warehouses, fuel, shell companies and straw men to introduce illicit profits into the legal economy. In this web, corruption acts as an operative tool as well.
Deficit in state tools
Villagómez called for a state response adapted to criminality that has evolved far more rapidly than the instruments available to combat it. "In Spain we lack the appropriate tools to fight this twenty-first-century criminality", she stated. Criminal organisations are always ahead of investigations, especially when these focus on corruption structures.
The prosecutor also called for accelerating criminal justice in Andalusia. Investigations into large organisations require years of work and need to coordinate police, prosecutor, judicial and financial information. Villagómez called for more intelligence resources and faster access to information that would allow identification of connections between drug trafficking and institutional corruption.
International diagnosis
Óscar Naranjo, former Vice President of Colombia and former director general of that country's National Police, agreed with Villagómez's assessment. Naranjo argued that the fight against drug trafficking must begin by ensuring the strength of the institutions themselves: "First you have to think about putting your own house in order". He rejected any denial of the risk of corruption within state apparatus.
Naranjo maintained that strategies centred exclusively on seizures, the detention of organisational leaders or mass arrests have failed to end the phenomenon. The real opportunity lies in pursuing criminal capital and the criminal economy, because that is where the organisations' capacity to survive and regenerate after police operations resides.
Juan Manuel Vega, vice-president of the European Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), provided a telling statistic: around 30% of criminal groups use corruption as part of their activities. Organisations have evolved towards flexible models in which certain tasks are subcontracted, including capital laundering.
Cultural change in the financial sector
The financial sector is one of the areas where Vega sees greatest progress. Banking has developed mechanisms to detect and report suspicious operations. However, Vega argued that this "cultural change" must extend to other economic sectors susceptible to being used to launder drug trafficking profits.
Villagómez had already warned that the increase in money from cocaine could translate into more violence and corruption. The situation is especially concerning in Andalusia because the arrival of cocaine via routes traditionally associated with hashish is raising the economic volume of the business. With this increase in resources, the clans acquire greater capacity to penetrate institutions and security forces.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)