Drug Trafficking Lawyer in Spain

Organized drug trafficking is typically prosecuted in macrocases: proceedings with dozens or hundreds of co-defendants, thousands of hours of wiretaps, prolonged surveillance and simultaneous searches in different provinces. Defense in this kind of case requires specific experience that cannot be improvised.

At Alonso Sala we take on macrocases with coordination among the team and counsel for the other co-defendants when a common strategy benefits the client, and with strictly individualized defense when interests diverge.

Drug trafficking penalties in the Spanish Criminal Code (CP) are built as a ladder: Article 368 CP sets the basic offence and Articles 369, 369 bis and 370 CP raise it by degrees. On top of imprisonment, every conviction carries a proportional fine calculated on the value of the seized drugs.

The proportional fine is calculated on the market value of the substance, established through official valuation reports. If it is not paid, Article 53.2 CP allows the court to impose subsidiary personal liability (additional deprivation of liberty), set at the court's discretion and never exceeding one year; it cannot be imposed on defendants sentenced to more than five years' imprisonment (Article 53.3 CP). And when the court lowers the prison sentence by one degree (mitigated subtype, highly qualified mitigating circumstance), the reduction must also be applied to the proportional fine, in line with the non-jurisdictional Plenary Agreement of the Supreme Court's Second Chamber of 22 July 2008.

Police detention in Spain may not last longer than strictly necessary and is subject in any event to a 72-hour maximum: once that period expires, the detainee must be released or brought before a judge (Article 520 LECrim). In drug cases, what is said — or signed — during that window shapes the entire proceedings that follow.

• Right to remain silent and not to incriminate yourself. A police-station statement rarely benefits the detainee: our general rule is to reserve any statement for the court, once the police report has been examined.
• A lawyer from the very first moment: the detainee freely appoints counsel and is entitled to a private interview with the lawyer even before giving any statement to the police (Article 520.6 LECrim). Appointing private counsel displaces the duty lawyer.
• Foreign nationals: right to be assisted by an interpreter and to have the arrest notified to their consular office.
• Incommunicado detention (Article 527 LECrim): in organized-crime investigations, a reasoned court order may temporarily restrict certain rights (choosing one's own lawyer, the private interview), always under judicial oversight.

Once the detainee is brought before the judge, the hearing under Article 505 LECrim takes place within the following 72 hours: the prosecutor may request pre-trial detention ("prisión provisional") or bail; if no prosecuting party requests it, the judge must order immediate release. Preparing that hearing — family and work ties, a stable address, absence of flight risk — is the defense's first battle. If you need urgent assistance for a detainee, call +34 91 078 65 74.

The Audiencia Nacional has exclusive jurisdiction over drug trafficking when any of these elements concur: international trafficking, transnational organization, extreme-gravity quantities (Art. 370 CP), or connection with money laundering of national or international scope.

Our firm acts regularly before the Central Investigating Courts and the Sala de lo Penal of the Audiencia Nacional. Knowledge of the central forum is a critical asset for the defense.

The vast majority of drug trafficking proceedings are not macrocases: they are individual cases of street-level dealing, possession with intent to supply or home cultivation, investigated by the local court and tried — depending on the penalty — by the Juzgado de lo Penal (criminal court, now the Criminal Section of the Tribunal de Instancia after Organic Law 1/2025) or by the Audiencia Provincial.

Allocation depends on the penalty the law attaches to the offence (Article 14.3 LECrim): offences punishable with up to five years' imprisonment go to the Juzgado de lo Penal. In practice:

• Hashish or marijuana under the basic offence (1 to 3 years) and the mitigated subtype of Article 368 CP, second paragraph → Juzgado de lo Penal.
• Cocaine or heroin under the basic offence (3 to 6 years) → Audiencia Provincial, even if the facts are minor.

The defense has specific levers in these cases: disputing the intent to supply (personal use and shared consumption), challenging the expert analysis of quantity and purity, invoking the mitigated subtype for minor significance, and assessing a plea agreement ("conformidad") where appropriate. Organic Law 1/2025 reformed the conformidad: Article 655 LECrim no longer has a penalty ceiling, the agreement is channelled through a preliminary hearing, and defense counsel must inform the accused in writing of its consequences before it is accepted.

The realistic goal in street-level cases is usually a sentence allowing suspension of execution: Article 80 CP permits it for sentences of up to two years for first-time offenders — conditional, among other requirements, on the confiscation order being satisfied — and, for drug-dependent defendants, Article 80.5 CP allows suspension of sentences of up to five years where an accredited centre certifies rehabilitation or ongoing treatment. Non-definitive relapses do not count as abandoning the treatment.

Maritime drug trafficking concentrates much of the relevant proceedings in Spain. Hot spots — Strait of Gibraltar, Costa del Sol, Galicia, Levante and the Canary Islands — generate daily Civil Guard, Customs and SVA operations.

Our defense lines focus on: nullity of wiretaps (Art. 588 ter LECrim), broken chain of custody, insufficient motivation of search warrants, and disputing the imputation of the client to the role attributed by the prosecution.

A drug trafficking case moves through five stages: police investigation (surveillance, judicially authorized wiretaps), judicial investigation ("instrucción"), intermediate stage (prosecution and defense briefs), trial and appeals. Duration varies widely: a street-level case may be resolved in months, while a macrocase with dozens of suspects frequently takes several years between arrest and final judgment.

The investigation clock is set by Article 324 LECrim: the judicial investigation has a maximum term of twelve months, extendable by successive periods of up to six months through a reasoned court order setting out the causes of the delay and the steps still pending. Two rules matter particularly to the defense:

• Investigative measures ordered within the term remain valid even if their results arrive later (Article 324.2 LECrim).
• Measures ordered after the term or its extensions have expired are not valid (Article 324.3 LECrim): auditing the procedural calendar of the case can exclude prosecution evidence.

In macrocases, extensions are chained on grounds of complexity (letters rogatory, expert reports, analysis of seized devices). If the client is in pre-trial detention, the limits of Article 504 LECrim also apply: as a rule, a maximum of two years where the offence carries more than three years' imprisonment, with a single possible extension of up to two more. Monitoring these time limits — and requesting release when they run out — is part of the defense's routine work in these proceedings.

A drug trafficking conviction does not end with prison and the fine: it opens an asset front that can reach the defendant's entire estate and even property held by third parties.

• Ordinary confiscation (Article 127 CP): loss of the proceeds of the offence, of the goods, means and instruments used to prepare or commit it (vehicles, vessels, properties used to stash drugs) and of the profits, whatever transformations they may have undergone. If the assets cannot be located, other assets of equivalent value are confiscated (Article 127.3 CP).
• Extended confiscation (Article 127 bis CP): expressly provided for the offences of Articles 368 to 373 CP, it allows confiscation of the convicted person's assets where, on the basis of objective indicia — disproportion between assets and lawful income, ownership concealed through front persons or opaque jurisdictions, transfers with no valid economic justification —, the court concludes they derive from criminal activity and no lawful origin is established.
• Special rules (Article 374 CP): the seized drugs are destroyed; assets and profits confiscated by final judgment are awarded in full to the State and cannot be applied to civil liability or court costs.

In practice, the asset front opens long before judgment: frozen accounts, seizure of vehicles and vessels, and precautionary attachments during the investigation. Asset defense — proving the lawful origin of property, protecting bona fide third parties and challenging disproportionate measures — must be raised from day one. Note also that suspension of the prison sentence requires the confiscation ordered in the judgment to have been satisfied (Article 80.2.3 CP), so the asset strategy and the sentencing strategy go hand in hand.