editorial comment Quote: "Tourism is our life" ..... why do people go to Ibiza again?

Spanish police are failing to stamp out the drug problem in the clubbers' resort of Ibiza because of a lack of resources, a BBC documentary can reveal.

The programme Drugland, to be broadcast on BBC Two on Thursday night, reveals that the customs boat which patrols the waters of the Balearic island is so understaffed it has not made a single arrest in two years.

The programme also shows how new CCTV cameras which have been installed in the San Antonio area of Ibiza don't always work.

Ibiza is packed with British clubbers and a haven for drug dealers, and local officers like Juan Pantalioni from San Antonio Police are serious about forcing the drug dealers out of Ibiza.

He said: "The only danger we have in Ibiza is the drugs. If we don't fight against drugs we will have problems with the tourism.

"Tourism is our life and we must be very careful with it. We will fight as much as we can against drugs and we will win the war."

However, the sheer number of dealers on the island and the lack of resources - and political will - makes a difficult task even harder for the Spanish police. The Police just spend their time catching poor luckless people who are selling a few pills in a car park

One dealer who the BBC spoke to said few people were worried by the police. He added: "The large traffickers won't be found here. They never show their face.

"The police just spend their time catching poor luckless people who are selling a few pills in a car park."

The dealers all say that getting drugs into Ibiza is an easy task.

One said: "Customs don't have a very tight control over the coast and they can bring it in by boat very easily. It's very easy to bring it in by boat."

In fact, the BBC discovered that the Ibiza customs patrol hasn't arrested a single drug trafficker in more than two years.

Underfunding and the inability to attract people to come and live on an expensive island means the customs patrol boat is only actually operational for two weeks in every month.

CCTV crackdown

It is also totally out of service for the whole of August - the height of the tourist season - as the crew collectively go on holiday and no-one is drafted in to replace them.

One of the boat crew, Carlos, told the BBC: "We need another crew because this boat is working just 15 days per month. Normally it would continue tomorrow with another crew but we don't have enough people."

Another frustrated crewman added: "I come from the south, in the south of Spain we get them (drug dealers) every day but here nothing. Not enough staff and no resources but we do what we can?"

Another way the police have tried to crack down on drug dealing in Ibiza is to install a network of CCTV cameras in San Antonio.

But the system is dependent on an ADSL internet connection - which does not work all the time in Ibiza.

No change


BBC journalists found drug dealers were not worried by the police

Juan Pantalioni told the programme: "The dealers are in trouble. The CCTV cameras are very sophisticated, they work by the internet so all we need is a connection."

But one of the operators was more frank about the shortcomings of the system. He said: "The problem is that here in Ibiza the ADSL connection is very low."

In fact, while the BBC cameras were filming, the system went down on more than one occasion, leaving no CCTV coverage in the San Antonia area.

But even when the cameras are working, they don't appear to have had much effect.

While it has cut down on the numbers of people openly dealing on the street, the dealers again are unconcerned.

One dealer said: "You think its going to change, but everyone can see the cameras, everyone knows where they are.

"Do you think it will be a key to making trafficking not so prominent? No I don't think so."


Drugland: Ibiza will be broadcast on Thursday, 6 January 2004 at 2100 GMT on BBC Two

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