The Guardia Urbana discovers cocaine hidden in a promotional leaflet in Gràcia

The events took place this Monday on Garrotxa street. A plain-clothes patrol saw two men carrying out an exchange that caught the officers’ attention: one of them handed the other an apparently conventional leaflet.

When they inspected it, the police found a dose of cocaine inside. The officers then identified both the buyer and the seller and arrested the latter as the suspected perpetrator of an offence against public health related to drug trafficking.

The unusual feature was precisely the wrapping. Advertising leaflets are part of the everyday landscape in any neighbourhood and can change hands without being particularly conspicuous, a characteristic that in this case may have been used to try to conceal the handover.

The Guardia Urbana has highlighted how unusual the method used was. The intervention shows how sales of small quantities of drugs can make use of ordinary objects to make an exchange less evident at first glance.

The episode also took place in Gràcia, a district with intense activity on its streets, squares and commercial thoroughfares. This constant concentration of pedestrians means that many everyday movements can easily blend in among delivery workers, customers, residents and people simply passing through the neighbourhood.

The operation does not mean that this system has become a widespread practice in Barcelona: for the time being, what is known is this specific case detected by a patrol. What it does leave is an unusual image of how a street sale can be disguised in one of the city’s most mundane objects.

A piece of paper that would normally end up folded in a pocket or straight in a bin thus became the item that allowed officers to uncover the exchange. In this case, looking at what was inside the leaflet completely changed the meaning of the scene.