Spanish Police Apprehend Drug Dealer for Laundering Money using Crypto
It appears that the Spanish police has taken a bold step towards crippling one of the most extensive cartels in the world, after they arrested one of its top-ranking member. An official press release revealed that an individual suspecting of being a member of the notorious Colombian Cali cartel had been arrested by the police force in a monumental development. According to the press release, the suspected member of the drug cartel was taken into custody in Malaga. The operation required the collaboration of the Dutch and Spanish police authorities and both of them had been gathering information about the suspect for nearly two years.
A Colombian native, the unnamed suspect is reported to have played a major role in the operations of the Cali Cartel. He facilitated the trade of almost 6 million euros i.e. $7.07 million in cocaine. According to reports, he had set up a crypto exchange as a front and used it for moving his profits around and facilitating money laundering operations. His operations were spread out over the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Reports indicated that he moved from his base in the Netherlands to Malaga because of pressure. When conducting a raid at his home, the authorities seized three luxury vehicles, 15 credit cards, mobile phones, computers and cash worth 85,000 euros or $100,193.
They also obtained access to a number of crypto accounts. Police also raided one of his properties in the Netherlands and found several documents, $170,000 in the form of cryptocurrencies and crypto wallet accounts. Even though there has been a great deal of progress made in the crypto industry, but it is still haunted by its dark past related to drug facilitation. This year, a number of parties that had links to narcotics operation related to crypto have had to face the long arm of the law.
In August, the authorities went after the operators of the largest Dark Web drug platform in Germany called Chemical Revolution. Back in June 2019, these criminals had been arrested and had been charged with selling huge quantities of narcotics, including cannabis, heroin, amphetamine and MDMA, in exchange for Bitcoin. In Frankfurt, the state prosecutors alleged that all eleven of the arrested had trafficked more than 42 kg of cannabis, 130 kg of amphetamines, 17 kg of crystalline ecstasy and more through their platform between the period of September 2017 and February 2019.
During this time, the criminals had made around 1 million euros, which is approximately $1.2 million and this makes their outfit the most extensive online narcotics trade in the country. Part of their success depended on the complex administrative structure of the group, which relied on informants and supply chain officers. A number of the defendants in the case were involved in different stages of the administration process, from platform administration to couriers to sales staff. It remains unclear if the platform is still operating, but it seems that they were running an efficient outfit, considering that it took two years for the police to arrest them.
Tokenhell produces content exposure for over 5,000 crypto companies and you can be one of them too! Contact at info@tokenhell.com if you have any questions. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Some of the posts on this website are guest posts or paid posts that are not written by Tokenhell authors (namely Crypto Cable , Sponsored Articles and Press Release content) and the views expressed in these types of posts do not reflect the views of this website. Tokenhell is not responsible for the content, accuracy, quality, advertising, products or any other content or banners (ad space) posted on the site. Read full terms and conditions / disclaimer.