There was a time on the Costa del Sol when organised crime understood one basic rule: don’t draw attention to yourself.
That appears to have been thrown out the window in recent months, following a string of shootings and brazen attacks carried out in broad daylight and busy urban areas.
The incidents are linked to feuding criminal clans and, increasingly, young hitmen flown in from abroad with nothing to lose.
Bullets through business windows, gunfire in town centres and execution-style tactics are all unfolding in places where families are having breakfast or tourists are heading home from dinner.
It’s a stark change from the old Costa del Crime of the 1990s or early 2000s – which I remember, having spent four months every year here as a child.
Back then, the Irish organised crime groups dominated the underworld. Now, there are residents on social media pleading for the likes of the Kinahans to ‘come back’.
‘Bring back the paddies!’ reads one comment beneath an article about one of the several shootings this month.
While the Irish were hardly saints, they operated with a certain cold logic.
Yes, they engaged in money laundering, drug logistics and property fronts – but it was all done with a preference for quiet efficiency.
Violence naturally happened, and there were assassinations on the street, but they were not as numerous as in recent years.
Since the biggest Irish players moved the Middle East several years ago, what has replaced them is a volatile cocktail of rival gangs, imported feuds and freelancers – including teenagers – parachuted in to carry out hits.
Every shooting chips away at the region’s image and makes local residents and tourists grow more anxious.
The old guard seemed to better understand that while violence was bad for business, attention was worse, but today’s players don’t seem to care.
So yes, perhaps it’s time someone took back control of the Costa del Crime. Not because any gang deserves nostalgia or praise, but because the current chaos is unsustainable, and it’s the coast itself that will suffer.
Read more Costa del Crime news at the Spanish Eye.
