thought others might be interested too 😉
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Gang violence erupts as rave craze returns
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]With the rebirth of dance culture, hard drugs are openly for sale on the streets of Ibiza. Tonight, 40,000 ecstasy tablets will be bought on the island. Now the brutality that underpins the trade is boiling over, and the party paradise is turning into a nightmare world of contract killings[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Mark Townsend in San Antonio
Sunday August 20, 2006
The Observer
[/FONT]She was gone for five minutes. Scoring drugs on the waterfront of San Antonio rarely takes long. Rachel, 23, from Leeds, returned clutching three film-wrapped balls of cocaine and half-a-dozen ecstasy tablets. Her group sidled off to the lavatories of a beach bar in pairs. Like thousands of others, they had come to Ibiza to take drugs and dance all night in one of the many superclubs, then sleep off their hangovers on the beach during the day. And they were not disappointed: their holiday destination is the epicentre of the biggest captive market for cocaine and ecstasy dealers in the world.
Away from the laughter of the women from West Yorkshire, a darker story emerges. It involves a spate of contract killings, some of Britain’s most wanted criminals and an illegal trade that links San Antonio to drug syndicates in most major UK cities.
More murders are expected to follow as drugs barons battle for supremacy. The recent shooting of two innocent holidaymakers caught in the crossfire of a gunfight among British gangs just yards from where Rachel bought her night’s stash is evidence of escalating tension among the British criminals.
First reports that Ibiza’s club scene was experiencing its busiest season of the last few years reached suppliers acting for the leading drug syndicates last month. The response was immediate. Scores of dealers are thought to have been sent from the Costa del Sol and Britain to Ibiza. Gangs from Liverpool, Manchester, London and Birmingham are all thought to be operating in the port town, according to the latest intelligence from Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and Interpol…
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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1854324,00.html
