Drug smuggling

Inside the European City Overrun by Deadly Drug Cartels

A Spanish coastal city near the border of Gibraltar, La Línea de la Concepción is close to the top of the list of places not to visit—or, at least, that’s the impression imparted by La Línea: Shadow of Narco, Netflix’s new four-part docuseries (available now) about the area’s rampant crime and corruption courtesy of drug trafficking and tobacco smuggling. As more than one speaker remarks during the course of this two-hour non-fiction effort, it’s a locale so thoroughly dominated by narcos that it’s on the verge of becoming the next Medellín. Which, as you might imagine, hasn’t done wonders for its tourism or business climate.

Executive produced by Luis Velo and Guillermo Gómez, and directed by Pepe Mora, La Línea: Shadow of Narco is a snapshot of this beautiful locale, which residents praise for its warm weather, cheap bars, plentiful fishing, and fantastic beaches. Alas, while those wide stretches of pristine sand are an ideal destination to frequent during the day, they’re best avoided at the dead of night, when they become infested with high-speed smuggling boats that bring in 70 percent of Spain’s hash.