Updated: 01.15.2022 00:39 h.
“This was like the Basque Country, saving the distances.” This is how a neighbor describes life in El Polvorí de la Free Zone, a border neighborhood of Barcelona that was until now controlled by a family clan. Mossos d’Esquadra Y Urban Guard He was dealt a blow this week in a macro operation against marijuana: there were 18 arrests, many of them from a saga linked to the feared Jodorovich clan, The Mulattos.
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There are many interventions of this type in Catalonia. In the case of Free Zone, the difference is that the police slipped that the alleged criminals controlled “the movement of neighbors, the police and the parcel deliverers.” They dominated the whole neighborhood like their fort. The drug traffickers became strong in a residential area. In fact, when the agents entered, they did so with units from the Regional Area of Operational Resources (Arro) and the URPE of the Urban Guard, the so-called flying riot police. “We all know what’s around here,” justifies the same neighbor.
“This is like a town”
Which there is over here, clarifies another resident, “it has always happened”. The Powder magazine It gets its name from being a building that served to store gunpowder during the War of Succession in the 18th century and was used during the Civil War as a garrison. After the war, it fell into disuse. The end of shantytowns in Barcelona during the Franco regime saw the Administrations build apartments in this neighborhood perched on a hill on the Montjuïc mountain. The area took the name of the military depot. “In the 1950s, people from the slums of Barceloneta were relocated here, including my mother,” says another neighbor.
El Polvorí, scene of the police operation against marijuana / CG
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Was born The Powder magazine of the Free Zone. “This has always been a town, for better and for worse,” he says immediately. The good thing stands out that it is “neighborhood life and going together, all together, when someone has a bad time.” The bad, the marginality. “This has always been an area chunga, Let’s not fool ourselves. Lately less, but there has always been stories“, recognize.
Two families rule: the Fernández and the Gorreta
Some of these cares focus on the lives of Fernandez and the Gorreta. “They are two clans in the area whose members, at least some, are dedicated to the illegal cultivation of marijuana,” says J., asking to remain “absolute anonymity.” In fact, in the police operation on Tuesday morning there were 18 arrests, many of them focused on “los Fernández”.
According to police sources, it is a family linked to the almighty and feared clan of the Jodorovich, The Mulattos, located at the end of the Paseo de la Zona Franca. “Children of theirs have married and have been linked even more,” the same sources deepen. As in other places in Catalonia, marijuana trafficking has presumably seduced members of this family. “They grow indoors and earn a lot, a lot of money,” they explain.
18 detainees and hunt the informer
Until this week. Mossos Y Urban Guard They entered El Polvorí with everything –at least, with the Arro and the URPE– and dealt a blow to the alleged drug traffickers. There were 18 arrests and seizure of money, plantation instruments and weapons. Within a few hours, those arrested were released. The two police highlighted the control of the neighborhood, the distribution of fertilizer with vans and the presence of observers to warn of the police entry. The narcos had engulfed an entire neighborhood of Barcelona.
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Image of the operation against marijuana in the Free Zone / CG
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“After the police operation, the neighborhood seemed like a ghost town. Everything was quiet. Nothing moved. People started going out for a walk with their dogs and we seemed like a normal area,” explains J. It would last a short time. “When they went before the judge and were released with charges, they began to look for who had betrayed them. They want to find the sneaks“. There was more. “When they came out with charges, they ran a huge party in the square [de Lorca]”. Did they celebrate their release? “In style, with a barbecue in the middle of the street that stuck the smoke to the building in front”.
“Afraid? We feel safe: they protect us”
in the building of in front are the few shops of The powder keg There is a pharmacy and Ca la Mergui, the local bar. Their owners don’t want to talk. Some client, yes. Meanwhile, part of the relatives of those detained this week kill time in the nearby square, while they remember the macro intervention police. Where did he go? “Throughout the neighborhood. The police arrived at five in the morning and began to enter flats,” explains a parishioner.
They were afraid? “Not at all. There was already another police operation two years ago, and the fire in August.” The summer fire was an explosion in a narco-apartment-marijuana plantation that put the agents on alert. In The Powder magazine it was planted and trafficked, and a lot. “We are not afraid. The neighbors respect us and the businesses, too. There are no robberies here. These people protect us. Something happens and they come running. They are like the security of the place.” And the police? “She is rarely seen.”
Shadow of the Jodoroviches
Another neighbor provides more information. “At the neighborhood tables we tell the Urban Guard patrol more. There is a lot of incivility here. Full throttle cars, hits and parties at night. Drug. But they tell us that they have no troops. We don’t even see the Mossos,” he laments; he has been in El Polvorí for 21 years. Another is even more critical. “You are careless and they kick the door of your apartment, which bathed and set up a plantation. It’s unsustainable, I’m thinking of selling my flat”, complains J.
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A balcony of one of the blocks of the police operation / CG
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Police presence is complicated because El Polvorí only has two entrances: one towards Montjuïc and the other towards the Zona Franca promenade, where the Gasoil bar is located. Territory Jodorovich. “These [los Fernández y los Gorreta] they do nothing without the permission of The Mulattos. They say something to them and lower their heads,” a resident clarifies. “If someone grows something here, they do it with permission from The Mulattos and, probably, paying him a percentage,” adds a source from the security sector.
The drug poisons popular Barcelona
Regardless of the network of marijuana in the Free Zone, the method is well known. The kick in the door and occupation of flats to use them for criminal purposes. This is what Mossos d’Esquadra and Guardia Urbana highlighted in their press release after the police operation. All the detainees had ties to the raid, in addition to other crimes, some of them. Yesterday, to questions from this medium, spokespersons of the two bodies referred to the public statement, which can be consulted here.
As Global Chronicle explained, drugs and, specifically, marijuana, have poisoned community relations in the working-class neighborhoods of Barcelona and those of its conurbation. Wholesale cultivation, traffic and logistics claimed the life of Valentín Moreno, the Vila Olímpica murderer, who was shot dead in Sant Adrià de Besòs (Barcelona) in November last year. His death, precisely, was linked to the control of the marijuana in the Free Zone. The place where this week the police dealt a blow to a drug clan that would control the neighborhood with an iron hand.
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