A popular holiday resort on Spain’s Costa Blanca is acquiring a seedy reputation as a hotspot for drugs.
Benidorm is famous the world over for its vibrant nightlife, which attracts tourists in the millions.
It is also a magnet for British tourists looking to party, with over 600,000 reported to have visited the resort between January and August of this year.
However, it appears to have a flourishing drugs trade, with police recording a record number of arrests of dealers.
Located in Alicante province, Bendiorm reported the highest percentage of drug trafficking arrests for the region in the first half of 2024.
The numbers shot up by an astounding 23.4 percent over the first six months of this year compared to 2023.
The resort town also recorded the highest percentage of home robberies in another piece of bad news.
Overall drug arrests in Alicante province rose by 2.4 percent this year, as municipalities in the region clocked up more than 40 times the number of drug cases compared to similar-sized towns in Spain.
Last year, three British people were arrested for operating a drug delivery service using electric scooters.
They provided a supply of narcotics to guests staying at hotels in Benidorm.
The UK nationals were aged between 30 and 57, according to Spain’s National Police.
The suspects would search for customers in the bars and restaurants of hotels in the resort, offering them illicit substances at low prices.
Once an order was placed, the goods were delivered within “a matter of minutes”, police said.
Local police in Benidorm also found a rucksack containing 20 kilograms of cocaine floating in the sea in May.
The rucksack was retrieved from the water just off Poniente beach and was found to contain 20 packages of white powder.
The packages – each weighing about one kilo – were sent to the Civil Guard in Calpe for analysis, where it was later confirmed to be cocaine.
