Why do Galician drug lords love canned fish?

And the best brands paired by personality type

These days, few foodies are unfamiliar with fancy fish tins. The era when one could surprise unsuspecting friends by ordering a €30 can of fish or conserva at a latería (a canned/tinned fish bar) has long passed.

The finest ones tend to come from Galicia. Whereas tourists might see Andalucia as the prototypical Spain, Spaniards have a hankering for Galicia’s cool, breezy weather and Celtic-green landscape, which could, in places, pass for Ireland’s. The region is also the capital of fine seafood – both fresh and canned – and iconic restaurants such as O’Pazo in Madrid have been flying the flag for Galician seafood for decades.

Around Galicia, approximately 1,500 km of coastline fold into numerous rías or estuaries, forming one of Europe's most complex coastal areas. We call it el Caribe Gallego or Caribbean Galicia (remember the tourism promotion photos are taken on sunny days). Apart from the paradisiacal setting, these nutrient-rich environments create perfect conditions for diverse marine life to flourish.

The canning industry evolved from traditional salazón businesses that preserved fish through salting. As canning technology emerged, factories began processing the rías bounty, with different rías specializing in specific products. Ría de Arousa, for example, focuses on mejillones (mussels), with bateas (mussel rafts) dotting its waters.

Innovation has been central to Galicia's canning industry, which has numerous patents, techniques and pioneering food packaging designs under its belt. Women form the backbone of this industry, from the marisqueiras who harvest seafood to those who carefully pack products into tins, echoing the role of Galician women as wives and mothers of mostly-absent fishermen.

Often described as a smuggler's paradise, the region's coastline took a darker turn during the 1980s and 90s, when the industry was transformed to compete with foreign markets and over-fishing clamp down displaced many fishermen and some turned to smuggling tobacco. This eventually expanded to more dangerous contraband and fish canning factories (among other businesses) became convenient fronts for money laundering operations.

Since then, Galician drug dealers have played out a real-life drama that has captivated Spaniards through the Telediario, the national news program, for decades. At one point, a staggering eighty percent of cocaine entered Europe via Galicia's beautiful rías.

More recently, the lives of these drug dealers and their prosecution were dramatized in the massively popular TV series Fariña or Cocaine Coast (2018), based on the book of the same name and centred on Cambados, Pontevedra.

Fariña (which is the clever Galician word for both flour and cocaine) became notorious after a spate of libel cases were brought by drug dealers and politicians.The compelling script chronicles Galicia's contraband evolution from cheap tobacco to far more lucrative Colombian cocaine, featuring Spain’s favorite drug dealer: Sito Miñanco.

Other series soon followed: Vivir sin Permiso or Unauthorised Living (2018-2020) and the latest, Clanes or Gangs of Galicia (2024).

Netflix’s Galician narcos shows often feature fish canneries as fronts for money laundering, creating an entertaining but distorted view that overlooks the reality: only a tiny fraction of the region's canneries have been connected to such activities.

If we trust successful Netflix shows set in Spain, Spaniards only have two career paths to becoming rich: fish tin drug lord or bank robber. Can somebody have a word with the Tourism Board?

In Fariña, it's impossible not to be dazzled by the charismatic Miñanco, a Robin Hood of sorts, soccer team owner, family man and net employment creator. It helps that he is brought to life by the dashing Javier Rey of Velvet fame. Credit goes to the casting team for the more realistic portrayals of the other drug dealers.

In the series, the now-infamous Charlines family and part of Miñanco’s smuggling clan or gang owned a sardine canning factory. Called Conservas Charpo in real life, it has long been an abandoned site. The series features excellent scenes of the Charlines' inept sons mismanaging the factory and of the clan enjoying large seafood meals, clearly inspired by shows like The Sopranos. The success of this series directly led to a rise in tourism, with the ever-reliable Guia Repsol developing a real location tour.

From Cambados, we move to the fictional town of Oeste, where Unauthorised Living's Nemo Bandeira becomes a respectable businessman by laundering drug money through his wife Chon's family fish canning factory, Conservera de Oeste (the real life Pandomar).

Visual Identity Created for Vivir sin Permiso by producer Mediaset

In the series, the aging and Alzeheimer’s-afflicted Nemo purchases a second cannery Conservera Moliner to create employment for his illegitimate child while living in the dazzling Pazo A Toxeiriña. In Galicia, pazo is a byword for “very rich”. These grand stone manor houses, originally built by noble families, are emblematic of wealth and privilege. If you have seen this name before it is because Galician wine makers are adept at using it!

The Pazo de A Toxeiriña

Nemo’s house in Unathorized Living, the real life Pazo de A Toxeiriña (a coveted events space)

Gangs of Galicia returns to Cambados for a series partly based on drug lords' descendants-spoiled youth obsessed with luxury cars but who know better than to buy a flashy pazo. Unfortunately the canned fish factories are absent keeping in line with the more astute forms of money laundering in place.

It is not only on TV that we encounter these factories; a quick read through the national and Galician press of the last twenty years highlights their use as fronts.

In 2011, 33 kilograms of cocaine were found in a shipment of tuna cans and, in 2014, a conservera and the luxury chalet of a well-known drug lord came up for auction for €3.7 million. That same year another factory that had received EU funds worth €4 million was closed because of links to drug lords.

Canned fish factories might provide a useful hiding place for drug lords but, for me, these fish tins capture the casualness of Spanish eating. As a student, you can build an aperitivo party with a bag of crisps, a can of cockles, and some beer.

The tins also are a reminder of the importance of the sea in the Spanish psyche. In Madrid, you might be hundreds of kilometers away from the rias but a fancy tin of clams can bring you closer to your summer in Galicia.

My suitcases are always bursting at the seams with tins and I collect canned fish recipes from all sources. Many lunches are nothing more than a tin and some carefully chosen vegetables or salad leaves. So here are my favorite real-life canneries and tips for pairing them to your friends and colleagues:

Real Conservera

A perfect gift for friends with delusions of grandeur, or who’d secretly like to marry a rich count/countess.

Portomar

The pragmatic perfectionist who believes a cockle should be both delicious and arranged in its tin with geometrical precision will be thrilled with this brand.

Ramón Peña

For the instagram influencer who serves conservas with tweezers and uses the hashtags #cookingwithconserva #thefutureistinned #cannedstopwontstop #tinnedmussels #tinnedoysters #mussels #tinnedseafood #tinnedfish #tinfish #tinfishdatenight #bivalves #mollusk #mollusks #oysterfarm #farmedmussels

Los Peperetes

The brand for the friend who keeps pointing out:"I was into gourmet tinned fish before it was cool.”

Güeyu Mar

For the fire-obsessed grillmaster who believes everything—even already-cooked canned fish—would be better if it got a little more smoke. (Apologies, this factory is in Asturias.)

Calvo

Spain’s most well-known supermarket brand is ideal for the minimalist with a tiny budget, or for the Spaniard emigre in search of TV ad nostalgia.

Conservas de Cambados

This excellent quality brand is for the no-nonsense epicure without the "I own a pazo" price tag.

La Curiosa

For the trendy millenial or art graduate in your life. Their humorous tin design is unique while their quality is high.

Conservas Frinsa

For the environmentally conscious consumer who wants to know the exact harvesting location of the content of the tin.

El Abuelo Lelo

Aspiring chefs seeking out more obscure tins like smoked oysters will be impressed.

Porto Muiños

Vegans who want to get behind the tin craze with canned seaweed will love this brand that has paradoxically built a seaweed empire in a region where traditionally it was not consumed.

Churrusquiña

For feminist foodies as it is the only brand that features women, the backbone of the industry.

Some interesting Spanish canned fish sources to follow are Carlos Álvaro @el_catalatas and @catalataoficial the account of the producer association ANFACO-CECOPESCA.