No one will argue that administrative bodies and agents are subject to the law, as provided for in the Constitution in its article 266. Even if – by mere hypothesis – the law is considered “outdated”, certainly no one in the State should claim the right to proceed differently from what the law provides.
Now, the much-talked about Organization of Criminal Investigation Law provides, in its article 8, paragraph 2, that, when investigations into drug trafficking take on particular complexity, due to the high size, transnational nature or high organization of criminal networks, the competence to investigate always – without exception – lies with the Judiciary Police.
Let us now imagine a hypothetical scenario, in an imaginary location, in which an investigation that did not assume complex contours unexpectedly detects a transnational network, or part of it, highly organized, violent, which is dedicated to drug trafficking, generating high profits. In other words: as a result of chance, a supposedly simple investigation becomes long and involves countless investigative steps and ends up dismantling an international drug trafficking network.
This is a prime example of finding a needle in a haystack. Better: a gold needle with a diamond on the tip! This police force, which only carried out normal procedures for a small local criminal, ended up inflicting a serious blow on an international network.
Abandoning the imaginary, the PSP has recently had similar luck. By mere chance, he dismantled – let’s hope in its entirety – a drug trafficking network and seized almost six tons of narcotic products without anything making him foresee it. We believe that this is what happened, because if during the investigations the PSP had come across transnational contours and a complex criminal network of a large scale, it would certainly have informed the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which, in turn, would have promptly transferred the investigative powers to the Judiciary Police, as required by law.
No one can assume, in fact, in any way, that the PSP, as an institution subordinated to the law and the Constitution of the Republic, could act differently. If she had known in advance the extent of what she would find, she would have certainly informed the Public Prosecutor’s Office, if only, so as not to fall into the paradox of using her resources to exercise the powers of the Judiciary Police, at the same time that, claiming to have no resources available, she hands over strategic, tactical and operational control, of national and European borders, which are the responsibility of the PSP, to the human resources lent by the PJ.
We can only conclude then – because not to do so would be to call into question the subordination of the internal security system to the Constitution and the law – that the recent and publicized operation of the PSP, in the dismantling of an international drug trafficking network, was after all by luck, the work of a happy accident.
I don’t want to believe anything else. It would be too serious!