- Most of the arrests have been made at controls established to ensure compliance with the alarm state
The coronavirus and subsequent movement restrictions have not stopped drug dealers or consumers selling their wares or of doing business, as those who are so dependent on the drug regularly expose themselves to sanctions whenever they go out to buy their ‘fix’ despite the current confinement.
The National Police are aware of this and despite being focused on ensuring compliance with the state of alarm, they have not neglected the fight against drug trafficking and are currently taking advantage of the massive police presence on the streets, with controls 24 hours a day, to intercept these drug pushers.
As a result of the extra patrols, during the first month of confinement, the National Police have arrested 62 people in the province for drug trafficking, most of them in the cities of Alicante, Elche, Orihuela, Elda, Petrer, Alcoy, Benidorm and Dénia.
The Alicante Provincial Police Station say that the habitual consumption of drugs creates “a physical as well as a mental dependence and creates an urgent need for drug addicts to continue replenishing their stocks and consuming these substances.”
Supply and demand also controls the criminal world, so the “dealers” try to make a living by continuing to distribute drugs, but with the added difficulty of evading the numerous controls that the Security Forces and other security agencies have established.
Of the 62 people arrested with different types of narcotics, the most common have been cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and hashish.
Although many dealers continue with their traditional methods, there are some who try to be a little more imaginative at a time of maximum police surveillance.
This was the case of two men detained in Alicante with 57 grams of cocaine who, to avoid being discovered, pretended to be distributors of two well-known home food distribution companies. These types of workers have no mobility restrictions during the state of alarm and the traffickers posed as food distributors in order to transport and distribute their drugs with impunity, until, that is, they were eventually discovered and detained by the Police.
In other parts of the Valencian Community, the traffickers have even hired such distributors to deliver drugs to their clients.
Several of the detainees were arrested after fleeing from checkpoints and being chased, as happened on April 9 on the beach in San Juan. A driver tried to flee, threw away a package containing 100 grams of cocaine but was eventually captured by agents of the Operative Response Group (GOR).
In Elche, the police also arrested the driver of a car at a checkpoint on the Crevillente road. As the agents approached, the young man threw a small bag out of the containing more than 300 grams of heroin. Another alleged trafficker was stopped on April 7 at a control in Alcoy . He was carrying a hundred grams of hashish hidden behind a child seat in his car. On searching his home the police then found a further 45 grams of cocaine.
