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Police arrest 24 in annual Ibiza drugs raids
But operation is unlikely to have made a dent in the Class A drugs trade aimed at clubbers
Ibiza may have emerged in recent years as a favourite celebrity haunt for the likes of Doctor Who star Matt Smith and his current squeeze Daisy Lowe, pictured frolicking in the waves last week, but the criminal side of the 'party island' came to light yesterday as police detained 24 people during anti-drugs operations.
The detainees are thought to be mostly British members of Manchester and Liverpool-based rival drugs cartels operating in San Antonio on the west of the island.
The raids were carried out by the paramilitary Civil Guard, whose Central Operations Unit flew in from Madrid after surveillance was carried out by local police officers. As well as the arrests, police said they had seized "quantities" of cocaine, ecstasy and other drugs.
Half a million British holidaymakers descend on Ibiza every year. Of those aged 16-35, 44 per cent admit to taking ecstasy, according to a survey carried out by Liverpool's John Moores University with the European Institute of Studies on Drug Prevention.
The San Antonio drugs raid looks like becoming an annual fixture. Last September, police said they had dealt a decisive blow to a British cartel in the west-coast town as a result of Operation Trafalgar. Officers arrested 24 members of a Liverpool-based gang, seized 23,000 ecstasy pills and €100,000 in cash.
But it seems unlikely that raids like Operation Trafalgar will see the '24-hour party people' turning their back on the superclubs and heading for the bucolic Ibizan hills, famous for their hippy markets. The 23,000 pills seized last September were a drop in the Mediterranean Sea compared to the 40,000 ecstasy pills that police say are sold every day in Ibiza. ·
