The head of anti-money laundering of the Police in Madrid is arrested with 20 million euros trapped in his house – Diario La Página –

The Internal Affairs Unit of the Spanish National Police has arrested the chief inspector of the Economic Crimes Section of the Madrid Police Headquarters in the framework of the anti-drug operation in which the largest cache of cocaine in history was seized of the country with more than 13 tons of cocaine sent from Ecuador, according to Vozpópuli and police sources have confirmed.

The agents have also detained the police commander’s partner, another official stationed at the Alcalá de Henares Police Station (Madrid). In the search of the home that both shared in that town, the investigators found about 20 million euros that had been sequestered and that could come from businesses linked to drug trafficking.

The anti-money laundering chief of the National Police in Madrid has been sent to provisional prison by order of the head of the Central Court of Instruction number 1 of the National Court, which is investigating him for crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, drug trafficking, omission of the duty of prosecute crimes, bribery and money laundering. The magistrate has decreed summary secrecy in the case. According to sources consulted by this media, the arrests are related to the interception of 13 tons of cocaine hidden in a fruit container that arrived at the port of Algeciras (Cádiz).

Agents of the National Police and officials of the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency intervened in the aforementioned port a container that was transporting a total of 13,062 kilos of cocaine, which represents the largest cache of this drug intervened to date in the history of the drug trafficking in Spain, as well as the second largest intervention in all of Europe – the largest in a single container – and one of the most important worldwide.

As explained by those responsible for the investigation in a press conference held this Thursday, the container left the port of Guayaquil (Ecuador) and was destined for Algeciras. However, the Ecuadorian exporter appeared in customs and police databases with a history of illicit trafficking, so upon arriving in Spain the shipment was inspected and inequalities were detected between the declared cargo and the real one that motivated the opening, carried out last October 14.

Bananas to hide the drug
The contaminated container had a screen made up of boxes loaded with bananas to hide the drugs. Behind this screen there were a large number of boxes, identical to the previous ones, but inside which were hidden bricks of cocaine packaged to the exact size of those boxes.

As a consequence of the discovery, after the first procedures, five searches were carried out by order of the Court of Instruction number 3 of Algeciras, four in the province of Alicante and one in Madrid, with the intervention of abundant documentation that is being analyzed by the investigators. In addition, the agents in Toledo arrested a woman, a partner of the company to which the shipment was sent, while the two managers of the importing company are absconding.

After these first arrests, fifteen people arrested, including the pair of agents, were brought to judicial custody this Friday at the Central Court of Investigation number 1 of the National Court. The Special Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office has requested provisional detention for all of them.