The chief prosecutor of the Special Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office, Rosa Ana Morán Martínez, stated this Monday in Gijón that currently the work of the Public Prosecutor's Office is primarily directed towards the "financial strangulation" of the drug trafficker.
She expressed this before the media before the start, at Laboral Ciudad de la Cultura, of the meeting of Delegated Prosecutors of the Special Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office (FEAD), an event that will last until next Wednesday and whose inaugural act has been attended by the counselor of Finance, Justice and European Affairs of the Principality of Asturias, Guillermo Peláez.
Morán detailed that this annual meeting of the Special Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office has a dual aspect: on one hand, a centralized dimension, as it is a Special Prosecutor's Office based in the National Court; and, on the other hand, a decentralized dimension, thanks to a territorial network formed by 31 delegates, including a delegate in Asturias.
According to her, these sessions allow for debate, analysis, and the establishment of conclusions, as well as the design of programs and lines of action for the upcoming year.
In this context, she emphasized that there is a focus on the pursuit of money laundering, "because in the end, economically strangling the networks is the most effective way," she pointed out. She specified, however, that this strategy is compatible with the traditional seizures from drug trafficking organizations.
The chief prosecutor also considered it essential to adapt to the new methods used by these organizations, both in their communication systems and in the methods used for transporting drugs.
"The State also has to equip itself with all the technical means to respond to that threat," emphasized Morán Martínez, referring to the fight against drug trafficking.
On another note, she pointed out that, although in general terms the figures for drug seizures have slightly decreased, these data vary by year and can largely depend on the scale of the operations carried out.
"The truth is that there is increasingly more cocaine available in Spain and it is entering throughout the territory and in Asturias as well," she insisted.
Regarding the causes of this increase, it has pointed to greater consumption, although it has clarified that the situation is different depending on the area. In the case of Asturias, it has pointed out that it probably should not be attributed so much to internal demand, but rather to the fact that, due to Spain's geographical position, the country acts as a transit point for cocaine that arrives by sea before being distributed to other European destinations.
Institutional collaboration against drug trafficking
Alongside the prosecutor, the counselor Guillermo Peláez has intervened, who has emphasized that Asturias has been chosen as the venue for this meeting, in which three days of "intense" work will focus on the analysis of "tremendously complex" crimes linked to public health, drug addiction, and transnational criminal organizations.
Peláez has stressed that this type of criminal behavior usually generates other associated crimes and has highlighted the "enormous seriousness" of everything related to drugs, which comes to impose itself on personal and social needs and contributes to worsening them.
For this reason, he has defended the need to combat drug trafficking from different fronts and through close institutional collaboration.
In this regard, he has assured that the Government of the Principality of Asturias is at the disposal of drug prosecutors to cooperate in the fight against "especially serious" crimes with a "very high" social incidence.
The counselor has also recalled that the Prosecutor's Office report presented last week warned of an increase in crimes against public health, which, in his opinion, reinforces the importance of holding this Board in Gijón and that the participants can discuss and address from different perspectives the strategies to confront this organized crime.