Costa News Spain Breaking News | English News in Spain.
The Costa del Sol special security plan has now led to 1,619 arrests and the seizure of €12.4 million since it was launched in April 2024, according to the latest published figures.
The balance also shows 892 operations against drug trafficking, smuggling and money laundering across the province of Málaga over the past two and a half years.
Drugs, cash, weapons and vehicles seized
Officials say the operation has taken 127 tonnes of hashish out of circulation, along with 18.8 tonnes of cocaine, 6.1 tonnes of cannabis and 1.8 tonnes of MDMA and other synthetic drugs.
The same period saw the seizure of 313 firearms, 626 land, sea and air vehicles, and 96,180 packets of smuggled tobacco. The value of movable property seized is put at €917,382.
The figures show the scale of the wider crackdown on organised crime along the coast, where police and investigators have continued to focus on drug networks using the province as a logistical base and transit route.
Málaga city was added after shootings
The plan was widened to include Málaga city on 24 September 2026 after shootings in Barcenillas and at a restaurant on the Muelle 1 waterfront.
That extension brought the capital into the same reinforced policing model already operating elsewhere in the province.
The figures place the Costa del Sol plan within a broader anti-organised crime strategy in southern Spain, where authorities have continued to target trafficking routes, storage sites and the groups behind them.
Although the plan has been running for two and a half years, officials say it remains active both in the province and, since September, in the city itself.
