They live in overcrowded flats with more than 30 other people, in cramped conditions. They have to deal with fights involving machetes outside their building, mistaken doorbell rings in the middle of the night that prevent them from resting, and nitrous oxide cylinders found in the lifts. These are just some of the issues that the residents of a building on General Balanzat Street, in the heart of Sant Antoni, have to deal with on a daily basis. They are forced to live alongside an organised criminal structure, where each individual is a cog in the criminal machine, making their lives increasingly difficult.
They say that the root of the problem is that one person owns more than twenty flats in the building. This individual, allegedly through a third party responsible for administration, has rented out several of these flats, typically crammed with dozens of people, which the residents consider to be an 'unscrupulous' act.
These same neighbours have reported to the Ibiza and Formentera newspaper a whole ‘string of illegalities inside these flats’. To begin with, according to them, there is an ‘industrial kitchen’ that serves all those people who work in drug trafficking at night in the municipality of Sant Antoni. But that's not all. A neighbour who lives very close to this kitchen claims that the woman in charge ‘has already been to prison for providing false passports to people of sub-Saharan origin so that they could enter Spain’.
Within the criminal organisation denounced by the neighbours, they claim that there is a division of tasks according to gender. While the men are involved in drug trafficking, from the popular nitrous oxide – known as laughing gas – to other substances such as cocaine or «tusi», the women are responsible for managing the kitchen and stealing from tourists under the influence of alcohol and other substances.
Substance trafficking
According to these residents, trafficking of materials is common in the area. They say that they often see nitrous oxide cylinders being unloaded and taken to homes, from which they will later be distributed. Residents say that these individuals communicate with each other when making deliveries, 'to warn each other via mobile phone in case of police presence'.
A resident who says he grew up there says he has even found empty cylinders of this substance in the lift. He is very critical of all this alleged illegal activity. «I see kids, barely 12 years old, who are hooked, and they sell to them as if they were adults,» he says.
Drug trafficking is not the only illegal activity carried out by the people living in these squats. Neighbours claim that the women steal from those most affected by alcohol and other substance abuse. ‘They approach tourists under the pretext of selling them bracelets and, when they are distracted, they steal their watches or dip their hands into their bags or pockets,’ says a woman who works very close to the block of flats.
Point of sale
These flats are also allegedly used as a point of sale for all the stolen goods. Many people, especially tourists, have found, through the geolocation of their electronic devices, that their mobile phones stolen the night before were inside that block of flats.
Theft
In fact, during the Civil Guard raid on Friday, F., a woman of Italian origin but resident on the island, approached the officers. Her phone had been stolen last August and its location indicated that it was inside one of these houses. As a result of the Civil Guard's activity, she intends to report the theft. This is a situation that, according to the neighbours, is quite common, as ‘we often have people coming here asking us for help in finding their mobile phones. We tell them that they will probably have to forget about it’.
All this trafficking in drugs and stolen goods inevitably leads to a clear deterioration in security in the area. Another local resident recounts how, just a few days ago, ‘there was a fight, with machetes, between a man of North African origin and another of sub-Saharan origin’. Although this has been the most extreme case so far, given the weapons used, they say that ‘fights between them have become commonplace’.
Safety
This worker, who also lives in the area, says that safety has been seriously affected by the presence of these «pisos patera». She encounters these people both at her workplace, where bars were installed years ago, and on her way home. ‘I'm afraid of what might happen, I feel defenceless in the presence of these individuals,’ she says, visibly affected.
G. is a woman who lives next door to one of these flats. She claims that people knock on her door almost every day, wanting to buy drugs and mistaking her flat for someone else's, denying her a good night's sleep on an almost daily basis. And not only that, but also the constant comings and goings generated by a flat where more than 30 people may be living: ‘Many of them don't even have a key. They come and go at all hours, going from one place to another,’ she says.
The situation has reached the point where, as she explains, she regularly finds small bags with traces of cocaine or other substances on the terrace of her home, which fall from some of the upper flats. ‘I've even found my cat sucking on one of those bags on my own terrace,’ she says, fed up with the situation.
This constant flow of people, often in less than ideal conditions, has an impact on the neighbourhood. A security guard has had to be hired, say the residents, who warn that the cleaning lady is going to stop working there, tired of the situation: ‘They urinated in the lifts, the entrance... sometimes she would finish cleaning one side and ten minutes later it would be the same again,’ they told this newspaper.
The illegal activities may not be limited to drug trafficking, as tourists arriving with suitcases can be seen from outside the block. Neighbours claim that some flats are being used for illegal tourist rentals and that these arrivals are ‘commonplace’. This would be another illegal activity, as regulations prohibit tourist rentals in blocks of flats intended for residential use.
With all this in mind, the residents of this block in Sant Antoni hope that measures will be taken to try to curb this criminal activity, and that the intervention of the state security forces will not stop at the searches and arrests carried out in the two flats on Friday morning.