Operation Necora ( es, Operación Nécora, lit. Velvet Crab) was a major Spanish police operation against drug traffickers in Galicia,

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. It led to the arrest of 54 people.

Background

In the 1970s fishermen from declining fishing towns along the Galician coastline turned to the more lucrative occupation of importing

contraband Contraband (from Medieval French ''contrebande'' "smuggling") refers to any item that, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold. It is used for goods that by their nature are considered too dangerous or offensive in the eyes o ...

cigarettes from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

; At that time the sole manufacturer of cigarettes in Spain was

Tabacalera Tabacalera, formerly the Compañía Arrendataria de Tabacos, was a Spanish tobacco monopoly whose origins date back to 1636, making it the oldest tobacco company in the world. In 1999, the company merged with SEITA of France to form Altadis, ...

, a monopolistic state-owned company. The topography of the Arousan coastline, dotted with coves and inlets, allowed these to bring in the contraband under the cover of darkness and from there distribute it throughout Spain. In the 1980s, the

Medellín cartel The Medellín Cartel ( es, Cartel de Medellín) was a powerful and highly organized Colombian drug cartel and terrorist organization originating in the city of Medellín, Colombia that was founded and led by Pablo Escobar. It is often considered ...

, under pressure from the US authorities and a saturated North American cocaine market turned to Europe, the smugglers utilized the methods developed in the previous decade to import

hashish Hashish ( ar, حشيش, ()), also known as hash, "dry herb, hay" is a drug made by compressing and processing parts of the cannabis plant, typically focusing on flowering buds (female flowers) containing the most trichomes. European Monitorin ...

, and later

cocaine Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...

for the cartels. From the town of

Vilagarcía de Arousa Vilagarcía de Arousa is a Municipalities of Spain, Spanish municipality in the Province of Pontevedra, Galicia (Spain), Galicia. As of 2014 it has a population of 37,712, being ninth largest town in Galicia. History The present site of Vilaga ...

- the main distribution point for the smugglers - Colombian traffickers from Madrid would collect the drugs and distribute them throughout the rest of Spain.

Investigation

The investigation into the international trafficking of drugs through Galicia was prompted by a letter sent in August 1989 by Ricardo Portabales Rodríguez, a drug dealer serving a prison sentence, to Luciano Varela, an investigating magistrate of

Pontevedra Pontevedra (, ) is a Spanish city in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. It is the capital of both the ''Comarca'' (County) and Province of Pontevedra, and of the Rías Baixas in Galicia. It is also the capital of its own municipality whi ...

's provincial court. The

inquisitorial system An inquisitorial system is a legal system in which the court, or a part of the court, is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case. This is distinct from an adversarial system, in which the role of the court is primarily that of a ...

used in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

civil law required further investigation by an

investigating magistrate In an inquisitorial system of law, the examining magistrate (also called investigating magistrate, inquisitorial magistrate, or investigating judge) is a judge who carries out pre-trial investigations into allegations of crime and in some cases m ...

. Varela deemed the case to be too big for a provincial court to investigate so it was transferred to the ''

Audiencia Nacional The Audiencia Nacional (; en, National Court) is a centralised court in Spain with jurisdiction over all of the Spanish territory. It is specialised in a certain scope of delinquency, having original jurisdiction over major crimes such as those ...

'', Spain's highest criminal court. A 35-year-old magistrate in

Baltasar Garzón Baltasar Garzón Real (; born 26 October 1955) is a former Spanish judge. Garzón formerly served on Spain's central criminal court, the ''Audiencia Nacional'', and was the examining magistrate of the ''Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 5'', ...

was charged with carrying out the investigation. The investigation was carried out with the assistance of Section IV of the Central Narcotics Department (). Garzón used testimony from two

informants An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informan ...

known in the media as (The penitents): the aforementioned Ricardo Portabales Rodríguez and Manuel Fernández Padín, an actual member of one of the ''clans'', to build the case against the traffickers.

Operation Mago

On the morning of June 12, 1990 a hundred vehicles containing 350 officers from the Central Narcotics Department, flown in specifically from

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

to prevent any possible leaks from the local police force, left the main police station in the Galician capital,

Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of St ...

, heading for the ''

comarca A ''comarca'' (, or , or ) is a traditional region or local administrative division found in Portugal, Spain and some of their former colonies, like Brazil, Nicaragua, and Panama. The term is derived from the term ''marca'', meaning a "march, ...

'' of

O Salnés O Salnés is a ''comarca'' in the Galician Province of Pontevedra Pontevedra is a province of Spain along the country's Atlantic coast in southwestern Europe. The province forms the southwestern part of the autonomous community of Galicia ...

. From there, each vehicle went on to their pre-assigned targets in different towns throughout the ''comarca''. The operation was initially known as ''Operación Mago'' (Operation

Magi Magi (; singular magus ; from Latin ''magus'', cf. fa, مغ ) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius th ...

) - Garzón was told that they had named it after himself; however, he rejected this name and they settled on ''Operación Necora''. The base of operations was Vilagarcía de Arousa's police station, the former local party headquarters of the

Falange The Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS; ), frequently shortened to just "FET", was the sole legal party of the Francoist regime in Spain. It was created by General Francisco F ...

. It was carried out under the judicial supervision of Baltsar Garzón, Luciano Varela and Javier Zaragoza, the deputy anti-drug prosecutor.

Trial

On September 6, 1990 the Anti-drug prosecutor presented an indictment against 49 of those arrested (Indictment 13/90). Of the remaining five, the prosecutor's office started a separate proceeding against three: Marcial Dorado Baúnde "Marcial de la Isla", Michel Haengi and Miguel Rivero González on the grounds of

money-laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

- something that would delay the start of the main trial. Luis Falcon Pérez "Falconetti" and Tomás Leis Carlés were released on bail, however, they remained imprisoned on unrelated charges.

References

External links

Érguete-Integración Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Operacion Necora

Necora The velvet crab, or alternately ''velvet swimming crab'', ''devil crab'', “fighter crab”, or ''lady crab,'' ''Necora puber'', is a species of crab from the North-East Atlantic and the Mediterranean. It is the largest of the swimming crab fam ...