Twenty individuals belonging to a transnational criminal organization involved in drug trafficking and money laundering have been taken into custody subsequent to an extensive operation that took place in Spain and Portugal on March 6-9. Using the stolen identities of Colombian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Venezuelan citizens, the suspects laundered almost EUR 10 million. Additionally, they had established an impromptu network of businesses with the ability to finance the network’s operations and launder illicit gains.
The inquiry started in 2018 when the police found 1,400 kilograms of cocaine concealed in a cargo from Brazil at a Sant Boi de Llobregat (Barcelona) company’s facilities. Several people involved in an illicit drug trafficking network were apprehended as a result of the operation that followed in 2019 and 2020.
- Spanish Police and Catalan Police, with support from Europol and Portuguese authorities, conducted a crackdown. 13 searches were carried out during the operation.
- Seized items include:
- EUR 156,000 in cash,
- Gold bars valued at EUR 35,000,
- Over 50 vehicles,
- Jewellery and 30 luxury watches totalling EUR 500,000,
- Electronic devices like mobile phones, and a weapon.
- Additionally, over 100 bank accounts and 10 real estate properties worth EUR 3 million were blocked. Europol aided the investigation since September 2021, offering operational analysis, technical expertise, and coordination. A mobile money laundering specialist office was deployed during the action days in Spain.
Law enforcement officials learned that the seized package was a part of a global drug trafficking operation with the goal of selling the drugs not only in Spain but throughout the European Union with the assistance of Europol. The ability to distribute drugs widely revealed the essential economic network required to finance the drug shipments.
The inquiry showed that a sizable network of individuals and businesses, primarily from Madrid, Almería, Andalucía, and Catalunya, were responsible for the shipments. Authorities also discovered that the offenders were able to evade detection for years by employing a number of intricate money-laundering techniques. Among these, using money mules was the most popular. The gang engaged in “smurfing,” or dividing up big sums of cash into several little transactions carried out by multiple money mules. The deposits made in this manner escaped notice because they were small enough to stay below regulatory reporting thresholds.
In order to explain money transfers, the thieves also pumped cash into a network of businesses they controlled, posing as business partners. They also employed cars with concealed compartments to transport funds, usually on the Barcelona-Madrid-Lisbon route, and frontmen to register ownership of assets in South America at the same time.
The illicit group has been operational for over eight years. The joint operation that resulted in the breakup of the gang and the arrest of its leaders was organized by Spanish and Portuguese police in Andalucía, Aveiro, Catalunya, Lisbon, and Madrid after a thorough three-year investigation. Seven out of the twenty people that were detained have already been imprisoned; the other six are in Spain, Portugal, and Venezuela. Among the offenders connected to the group were already imprisoned for other drug trafficking-related crimes.
