Spanish Police Bust Major Drug Money Laundering Ring Linked to Morocco and Europe

The criminal network had been under investigation for two years. Dedicated to financing drug trafficking in Spain and throughout Europe, it has been active for 22 years and uses a Syrian restaurant located in the Cobo Calleja industrial area, in Fuenlabrada, as a cover. According to the police, the network was earning "more than 32 million euros per year" for delivery and money collection services for a Colombian-Lebanese drug trafficking organization.

But this amount could be much higher and reach around 300 million euros per year, the agents estimate, specifying that from 2020, the network has adopted the use of cryptocurrencies, a more sophisticated system than the hawala, a traditional informal money transfer system based on trust. A good part of the money involved in this illegal traffic came from companies run by Chinese businessmen in the region, Mundiario reports.

To cover cryptocurrency transactions, the network has called on the services of third-party organizations that sent the money to the addresses provided by the clients, in exchange for a commission. This system would have allowed the criminal network to extend its activities to Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China, but also throughout Europe (Italy, France, Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Belgium, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Switzerland, Norway) and Latin America (Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia).

The leader of the network and his lawyer, who is also his right-hand man in the network, created a transport company, which allowed them to acquire a fleet of vehicles that were used to transfer the money safely. The dismantling operation, carried out in collaboration with Europol, led to the arrest of 32 members of the network and the seizure of 2,420,000 euros, 575 kilos of hashish, 276 kilos of marijuana, 11 high-end vehicles, seven luxury watches, a semi-automatic pistol. Also, 19 cryptocurrency accounts worth approximately 1.5 million euros have also been blocked.