Government responds to Moreno over drugs trafficking in Andalucía: calls to restore OCON-Sur
The Andalusian president has demanded that Sánchez reactivate the elite OCON-Sur unit in a letter following the Isla Cristina massacre. The Government's delegate rejected the requests, calling them a lack of rigour.
Political confrontation after drugs trafficking escalation in Andalucía
The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, sent a letter to Pedro Sánchez on Sunday demanding urgent action against the advance of drug trafficking in the region, including the reactivation of OCON-Sur, the elite Civil Guard unit disbanded four years ago. According to ABC, the response did not come from the Government president—who was concluding his holidays in La Mareta that day—but from the Government's delegate in Andalucía, Pedro Fernández, who accused Moreno of "lacking rigour" and showing "an absolute lack of knowledge and contempt for the operational decisions adopted".
Fernández argued that "OCON-Sur was a temporary structure, designed to provisionally respond to the needs of the first special plan". The facts point in another direction. The unit was born in 2018 as part of Plan Cateia, integrating agents from Judicial Police, Intelligence, Internal Affairs and the Rapid Action Group. At its peak operational capacity it had 150 officers under unified command. During its existence it dismantled organisations such as Los Castaña and Los Pantoja, curbing the impunity with which traffickers operated in the region.
The week that reactivated the debate
Moreno's request came days after one of the most violent episodes recorded in Andalucía in recent times. Last Sunday, two gunmen on a motorcycle fired a burst of AK-47 rounds in Isla Cristina that killed two women—one of them eight months pregnant, along with her baby—and an adolescent who was passing through the square. Another two young people were injured, one of them 18 years old in serious condition.
That same early morning, a Civil Guard patrol boat was riddled with bullets off the Huelva coast whilst pursuing a vessel loaded with hashish. The week also included another murder in Utrera and a shooting with casualties in Barbate. "This is a matter of the utmost gravity that generates insecurity amongst citizens, given the evidence that these events are repeating themselves with increasing frequency and impunity," Moreno said in his letter to Sánchez.
A territory that no longer limits itself to one region
The Andalusian president described in his letter a threat that has overflowed the historically affected areas. "We are no longer talking about a specific region, but the entire coastline and part of the interior are targets of drug traffickers," Moreno wrote, who explicitly mentioned the drug smuggling boats operating in the Guadalquivir river channel. The letter omitted other equally active areas: Cabo Gata, La Herradura, the Málaga or Cádiz coastline, and the marshlands of Huelva, where the Guadiana river has become a new cocaine entry route.
Moreno directly attributes the deterioration of the situation to the closure of OCON-Sur. "Most experts agree in pointing out that the disappearance of this unit marked a turning point in the increase of gang and clan activity," the president said, adding that "time and events have shown that the dismantling of OCON-Sur was a mistake".
The trail of violence and fallen agents
The escalation is not new. In the mouth of Barbate port, a drug smuggling boat ran down a Civil Guard inflatable boat amid cheers from part of the crowd, causing the death of agents David Pérez and Miguel Ángel González, with four other colleagues wounded. Last year, in another pursuit in Huelva, agents Germán Pérez and captain Jerónimo Jiménez died whilst performing a manoeuvre to intercept a drug smuggling boat.
Moreno demanded in his letter "all possible means" both operational and social, and stated as "necessary and urgent" the need to strengthen available resources for agents, who according to his letter face an "underlying complaint" over the inequality of means against criminal organisations.
Trade union associations also call for OCON-Sur's return
The Junta de Andalucía is not the only voice calling for the operational unit's reactivation. Faced with the finding that increasingly smaller organisations have access to military weaponry, the trade union associations AUGC, Jucil and AEGC have publicly demanded that the Interior Ministry restore the unit within security plans. Neither the Civil Guard's General Directorate nor the Ministry have responded to these requests.
The issue remains blocked in the central Government. The last public statement on OCON-Sur was made by Minister Grande-Marlaska in Parliament, where he denied on five occasions that the operational unit had been dismantled. His argument was that the 150 agents had been integrated into the commands as reinforcements for the Drug-Fighting Teams (EDOA). Those reinforcements, according to sources consulted by ABC, did not materialise.
Source: ABC