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Europa Press
Malaga
Wednesday, 19 February 2025, 15:21
A huge joint operation by the National Police and Europol has resulted in the arrest of 14 people accused of being part of the Russian mafia. They were being investigated for charging between 2% and 3% in what is considered a "multinational money laundering" of money from different criminal organisations, including the Mocro Maffia and other criminal networks made up of Albanians, Serbians, Armenians, Chinese, Ukrainians and Colombians.
According to the National Police, nine raids and searches were carried out in Madrid, Malaga, Marbella, Torremolinos, Coín, Ayamonte and Lisbon (Portugal), in which more than one million euros have been seized, as well as four money counters, encrypted mobile phones, a cryptocurrency wallet and abundant documentation, and the organisation's properties in Spain have also been blocked.
In Spain, the group was distributed through offices or headquarters in different locations, each managed by a "cashier", who made daily deliveries and receipts of cash, sometimes close to 300,000 euros.
Each cash dispenser had a security safe and a high-capacity cash counter stored inside a soundproof cabinet to avoid the characteristic noise it emits when counting banknotes.
According to the police, the two years of investigation have led to the location of the homes used by the members of the organisation, and the operational phase of the operation has led to the arrest of 14 people.
The three most senior members of the organisation have been remanded in custody by order of Madrid's 46th Magistrate's Court and future arrests are not ruled out.
During the operation, a Europol expert was sent to Spain to analyse the information from the encrypted mobile phones, "given the great importance" of the operation and the extensive criminal connections of the organisation under investigation, as its clients were powerful and dangerous criminal organisations.
The agents detected the extent of the criminal organisation's activities, which extended to various countries around the world, including the Netherlands, Estonia, Lithuania and Italy.
In fact, investigators were aware of a conflict between this network and another organisation of the Armenian mafia, which tried to carry out a robbery of more than half a million euros from one of the Russian organisation's ATMs but was thwarted by its security measures.
This attempted robbery led to a dispute between the two organisations, and a meeting was organised in Spain between Russian and Armenian criminal leaders to settle the dispute between the two organisations and prevent it from escalating further.
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