Under the picture of his father, who was second lieutenant of the Civil Guard, Juan Lara retains his two crossed sabers . They represent the meritorious body to which he gave his life since he first put on the uniform with 15 years , in the College of Young Guards of Valdemoro, faithful to the family tradition "from my great grandfather." He came to climb high in the ranks, to Colonel , with two international destinations, in El Salvador and Guatemala. But it's not because of his rank that he made history. It was a complaint that came out of his mouth and that smelled many of a burning horn. When I discover "a black chickpea" in the Civil Guard, he came to say in a forum with microphones , I give it to Justice and "when we could not prove it with evidence, because then I take care to make their lives bitter enough to leave to do it or leave. "
It all happened in November 1997, with heroin riding freely across the Campo de Gibraltar and desperate mothers fighting daily for their children, with green scarves, boats disembarking tobacco from the Rock, the growing arrivals of immigrants in wooden boats repainted, and fresh hash freshly packed in Morocco in plastic sacks and burlap. The Civil Guard did not have the resources it now has and the drug traffickers did not either, there were no cases of corruption that affected senior officers , as was known, of course.
The then Civil Guard officer Juan Lara (now 73 years old and has been retired for eight years) said something that went around Spain and was carried in the media: he admitted with all naturalness the existence of "black chickpeas" in the institution . Lara had made friends with the colonel in charge of the Internal Affairs Service (SAI) and knew well what he was talking about.
"It was in a meeting in Algeciras with mothers against drugs, it was a table chaired by a judge , with the Police Commissioner , a journalist, a representative of the Treasury , the SVA, Mr. José Chamizo [later would be the Andalusian Ombudsman] , and I was there, "recalls the then-lieutenant colonel, among other reasons, because he never forgot the enormous impact of his demonstrations in a society heavily battered by drug trafficking .
OVERDIDED DILIGENCES
Lara maintained many contacts with the active anti- drug coordinators, "because I met almost every week." He told them that "when he took a black chickpea, either we or the National Police, we would pass it to Justice as one more criminal. And when we could not prove it, then I said something like that I was responsible for making them bitter life enough to stop it or leave. " The prosecutor opened proceedings, which were dismissed. That created him a reputation as a good guard and frequent congratulations from the Civil Guard trade unionists and drug coordinators. But he also won enemies .
"The mothers were very hurt because their children were very, very involved in the drug and they wanted an answer that would satisfy them a little. I only did one thing, admit a reality, that in the groups, and more in the big ones like the Civil Guard, it is almost mandatory that there be black chickpeas. That can not be denied in any group. Now, we must see the proportion of those black chickpeas, and thank God in the Civil Guard the proportion was very small. "
Lara says that he was "lucky" to be in command of the Algeciras command in two stages, from 1989 to 1991 and from 1996 to 1998, very complicated years in the region. "In those times I noticed the presence of Internal Affairs because my Information service told me - 'there are teams outside' - and I said, leave them because the more we monitor, the better. Then I already became friends with the person who I was then in charge of the Internal Affairs Service and it was I who asked for it.Algeciras was a snack to snack, to put it in some way.We have to be very vigilant , he said, I do not want to know where your teams are and what is it what they do but please don't take them away from me. ”The more self-monitoring the better, I thought.
In his retirement today, 22 years later in a quiet neighborhood of Jerez, Juan Lara is worried before Chronicle about the great ability to corrupt the drug trafficking mafias now, and cites the recent arrest of the Judicial Police captain of the Civil Guard in Algeciras, which has impressed him "a lot".
Captain Joaquin Franco was arrested on July 4. He had been followed for several months by the Internal Affairs Service of the Civil Guard with the collaboration of the National Police. The Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office and a court of Algeciras are now in charge of judicial proceedings, secret at the moment. The officer is being investigated for the alleged crimes of revealing secrets, omission of the duty to prosecute crimes, prevarication and belonging to a criminal organization. His position was key for judges, prosecutors and security forces, and the arrest has shocked the Cadiz region.
The Unified Civil Guard Association (AUGC) states "with all reservations and respect for the presumption of innocence of this command", its deepest concern about "a situation that, if proven, would highlight something that we already denounced : the extension of the tentacles of drug trafficking in the province of Cádiz to high levels of the Administration and the public service. "
And everything happens in the south of the province for which the current acting minister Fernando Grande Marlaska is a deputy. "It has been shown that the patches that the Ministry of Interior has been applying in recent months are absolutely ineffective, " they say from the AUGC.
The last "black chickpea" has stirred Juan Lara. It feels bad "because it was a blow , all the previous cases had been guards and a non-commissioned officer , but this is the captain of the Judicial Police, a trusted man of the head of Algeciras and, above all, of the judges. the trial will come out and you will be punished if you have to punish it, or it will be acquitted, I don't know what will happen, but of course it is a very fat stick. "
In his time it emphasizes that "judges and Civil Guard worked very coordinated". Recognize that now " temptation is very great" for all the money that moves. During his tenure in Algeciras he lived very closely the detention of "several black chickpeas, some arrested by us and others by the National Police."
Lara says that everything has changed a lot: "Almost three decades ago we were in the Cato, in the booklet of how things are done, starting with the quantities that were small, came in chipichanga boats , did not know or where they arrived, sometimes they did it to the port of Algeciras, it was different. Like our struggle that was very precarious, for example, we placed the guards at points where they hand-written the license plates in one direction and another, when they passed several times we followed them. SIVE, Frontex, the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard, Customs Surveillance, everything is more sophisticated. "
The trajectory of Colonel Lara shows a varied preparation since 1965, when he finished his training at the College of Young Guards of Valdemoro, which he completed at the General Military Academy in Zaragoza, the Special Academy of the Civil Guard in Madrid and the Academy of Guards of Úbeda (Jaén).
SON OF WIDOW
"I had no adolescence, I was eight years of my youth going to bed at half past ten, to a touch of silence , and getting up at half past six, at the touch of target . It cost me a lot, I am the son of a widow , it was difficult to leave go ahead, "says a Septuagenarian Lara today.
In 1975 he went to the Civil Guard Computing Service and then to destinations such as Lleida, the Canary Islands, Ciudad Real, Jerez, Algeciras and Madrid. From 1991 to 1995 he worked as a UN attaché in El Salvador and from 1998 to 2000 he was added in Guatemala . Since 2011 Lara is retired, and maintains her devotion to flamenco and a good Uncle Pepe, who has a special image on her WhatsApp profile. He has collected everything in a book he hopes to publish soon and has titled Memories and experiences of a shy and naive selfish , where episodes and people who have gone through his life appear, especially in his most special destiny: Jerez.
"From my father , who died very young, with 49 years, I learned a lot. He was a good person, very fair, I look like him," says before his painting, which occupies a prominent place in his museum floor, full of memories of destinies. "I almost come from Ahumada," he jokes, "my great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father ... they were all civil guards, I have two sons and one daughter and none has liked to be," he laments.
Lara says that she has maintained all the values and principles of her family and that there are things she does not like now as "the political landscape, which I see very complicated" and, even less, that there are still missing " resources " in the fight against crime . And he quotes a recent anecdote , in a restaurant in Palmones (Campo de Gibraltar): "At a table there was a group of people from 30 to 40 years old, with tremendous gold necklaces , presuming to be traffickers . They said 'I have more money than All of you, I can invite you all, don't look at me that way. I'm a trafficker, yes, why do you look at us like that? ' It was seven or eight, that shocked me. "
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