On Isla Cristina these days we should be talking about the traditional festival of the Virgin of the Sea, but that is not the case. Since Sunday, when the triple crime occurred, many of the conversations have investigated the few details that have emerged about the shooting, an investigation that remains under summary secrecy but whose main hypothesis is that it is a settling of scores between two families dedicated to drug trafficking. The conflict between both clans dates back to 2024, when a man was shot dead in the Torrejón neighborhood, in the capital Huelva, and two other people were injured. The alleged perpetrator, nicknamed Baba, was later arrested in Gijón.
Almost two years later, if this line of investigation is confirmed, reprisals would have arrived. The two women murdered on Sunday were, according to the investigation, the mother and sister of that man. The latter, 39 years old, was eight months pregnant and the baby she was expecting also died. To these, we must add the death of a 16-year-old minor who, according to the Government subdelegate and the mayor of Isla Cristina, was not related or related to the two women, and two more injuries: an 18-year-old who was seriously injured, the son of the pregnant woman, and another person who was shot in the leg and is out of danger.
But this event, in addition to the harshness of the facts, puts in black on a white background a constant concern that those who pursue drug trafficking gangs have: the firepower and the degree of organization that some of these networks have achieved. On Sunday, two hooded men arrived in the El Rocío neighborhood on a motorcycle and one of them opened fire with a long gun. They then fled and, shortly after, the motorcycle was found burned in a pine forest near the entrance to Isla Cristina. Next to the vehicle, a weapon was located that sources close to the case identify as an AK-47. The investigation will have to determine if it was used in the attack.
The scene is no longer new to investigators. “They have weapons of war, assault rifles,” warned the Anti-Drug Prosecutor of Andalusia, Ana Villagómez, on Cadena SER. The prosecutor spoke of increasingly “radicalized” drug trafficking and “very professionalized” organizations, capable of functioning “like a company,” with people specialized in different tasks. A structure that, as he explained, makes investigations more complex.
But the problem does not end with the arrests. Villagómez also demanded harsh penalties once the accused come to trial. “We work with a law from the 19th century,” he stated, and warned of the “sense of impunity” generated by the current system. The prosecutor demanded a modernization of Justice, more resources and greater international cooperation.
Villagómez was not referring specifically to Isla Cristina nor did he link his words to the triple crime. He spoke of a broader reality, that of drug trafficking that is increasingly worrying in Andalusia, a photograph to which the president of the Board, Juanma Moreno, also referred and which he described as “unbearable.” The regional leader has demanded more resources from the central government to combat this scourge. “Drug trafficking cannot roam freely in Andalusia,” he stated.
For her part, the third vice president of the Andalusian administration, Carolina España, spoke along the same lines and demanded “more police resources and drastic measures” in the face of this “social alarm.” The PP of Huelva has also requested more troops and resources for the province and has proposed recovering the OCON-SUR or creating a similar structure against organized crime.
Let us remember that the OCON-SUR was one of the specialized devices deployed by the Civil Guard within the Special Security Plan of Campo de Gibraltar, created to concentrate means and investigative capacity against drug trafficking networks. Benemérita herself points out that the Special Plan has allowed, since 2018, the seizure of 1,700 tons of drugs, one million liters of fuel and 1,300 drug boats, in addition to arresting 17,000 people.
Drug trafficking has changed. It has become more professional, it has gained organizational capacity and, in some cases, also firepower. It is the scenario described by those who work to combat it and those who demand more resources. While these requests are being made to the central government, on Isla Cristina the Civil Guard continues to search for the two hooded men who arrived, shot and fled. The municipality remains shocked and with one word, retaliation, that returns again and again to the conversations. The investigation will have to determine whether the shooting was truly a settling of scores and whether there is a risk that the chain of violence will continue.
Surveillance has been reinforced in this coastal town while investigators try to reconstruct what happened: if the crime was really a settling of accounts between two families who have been in conflict since 2024, who ordered the attack and who are the men who carried it out. In that confrontation there had already been threats, shots fired from rooftops, another shooting with one dead and one wounded, and acts of intimidation with shots fired into the air in the capital of Huelva.
Between the Guadiana and the Carreras, Isla Cristina faces the Atlantic and Portugal through a network of marshes, pipes and canals that complicate surveillance. It is also an environment that organizations dedicated to drug trafficking have learned to take advantage of to move, hide boats or resupply fuel.
This is determined by the Ministry of the Interior, which has documented in different operations the use of this environment by drug trafficking support networks. The most recent, Operation Ánfora, began after the Civil Guard detected an increase in the arrival of drug boats to the Carreras estuary to supply themselves with fuel. The operation ended with 44 detainees and the seizure of 16,250 liters of gasoline, in addition to two short weapons, two carbines and four boats.
Investigators discovered that some of this fuel was stored in garages located under blocks of flats before being transported to the boats. The data gives an idea of the extent to which drug trafficking support networks can be integrated into the daily life of the municipalities where they operate.
But the concern goes beyond the geography of Isla Cristina. In other recent operations, arsenals have been located that show the firepower of some organizations. In Seville, an investigation against drug trafficking led to the intervention of four Skorpion submachine guns and two AK-47 assault rifles, in addition to drugs and ammunition. In Malaga, the National Police located 36 long weapons, 11 short weapons and 11 hand grenades in an operation against an organization dedicated to arms and drug trafficking.
They are different operations and have no relation to the triple crime of Isla Cristina. But they show concern about the professionalization and arming of these organizations. Some gangs no longer only have the means to introduce and distribute drugs. They also have logistical structures, specialized people and, in certain cases, weapons of war.
None of this allows us to affirm that there is a gang of drug traffickers behind the crime, that is precisely what the Civil Guard is now trying to determine, but it does allow us to understand the scenario in which the shooting occurs and the concern that the advance of violence increasingly linked to drug trafficking has generated for some time on the coast of Huelva.
