An alleged drug trafficker has died and two others have been injured this Sunday in Casar de Escalona (Toledo, 2,100 inhabitants) when they shot at the agents of the Special Operations Group (GEO) who were going to arrest them, as several police sources have confirmed to EL PAÍS. The shooting occurred around eight in the afternoon in the streets of the Toledo municipality during an operation to arrest the four alleged members of a criminal group of Dominican origin that the National Police links to drug trafficking.
When the agents stopped them to proceed with their arrest, the alleged drug traffickers began to shoot with the pistols they were carrying. The geos They then repelled the aggression with their service weapons. After the shooting, the officers themselves tried to resuscitate the person with more serious injuries, who finally died. Two other alleged criminals also suffered gunshot wounds and were taken to a hospital, where they remain under police custody. A fourth suffered “seizures” after being arrested, but has already been discharged and transferred to police stations, according to police sources. There are no injuries among the police.
This is the second serious incident due to the confrontation with organized crime groups that has occurred in recent days in anti-drug operations in Spain. Last Saturday, a 45-year-old police officer was seriously injured after being shot with an assault rifle when he was participating in the surveillance of several suspects in Isla Mayor (Seville). The criminals realized that they were being watched and began shooting. The agent suffered a gunshot wound to the pelvis and remains admitted to a hospital in serious condition. The Police then located nearly 700 kilos of hashish in a warehouse, as well as stolen cars, but the perpetrators of the shooting managed to flee and are still at an unknown location.
Both incidents have led the main unions of National Police agents to demand from the Minister of the Interior, Fernanado Grande-Marlaska, “more real and sufficient material resources, a reinforcement of personnel and the tightening of legislation to recover once and for all the principle of authority,” according to a statement this Monday from Police Justice (Jupol), the majority organization. The Federal Police Union (UFP) has stated along the same lines, denouncing “an important qualitative leap” in crime that “no longer holds back when it comes to shooting at the Police.”
The anti-drug prosecutor of the National Court, Rosa Ana Morán, warns in an interview published this Monday in EL PAÍS of the risk that “situations of violence will arrive in Spain like in Belgium”, where drug trafficking or the Netherlands, where the growing power of mafia networks has led to a situation of threatened politicians, intimidated judges, shootings and explosions in the middle of the street that have put the authorities on alert. “We need rules and legislative modifications. The Ministry of Justice should be more aware that organized crime and drug trafficking need attention and that the issue does not concern the Interior alone,” says Morán.
In September 2022, an internal report from the National Police already focused on the risk that, after the invasion of Ukraine, there would be a “short and medium-term” increase in illicit arms trafficking in Europe from uncontrolled arsenals of both contenders. In fact, in recent years the Ministry of the Interior has put out to tender several contracts to acquire material with which to reinforce the security of its agents after verifying that drug trafficking organizations are increasingly using weapons of war, of greater power than the pistols and revolvers that they usually used until now. Among these acquisitions are ballistic shields with the capacity to resist the impact of projectiles fired from assault rifles at just 15 meters away and high-resistance plates with which to reinforce the agents’ bulletproof vests.
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