Detained 14 people and seized more than one million euros in cash and cryptocurrencies. One of the defendants had “fixed residence in Lisbon.”
Fourteen people allegedly linked to the Russian mafia were arrested in a joint operation of Portugal and Spain, with the support of Europol, against the money laundering of international organized crime, according to PJ and this Wednesday.
According to the European police, the action took place on January 21 in Lisboa and in the Spanish cities of Madrid, Malaga, Marbella, Torremolinos, Coín e Ayamonte And it included the seizure by the authorities of more than one million euros in cash and cryptocurrencies.
The group worked mainly in Spain, where it had several offices with strong security boxes managed by clerks, which Daily moved about 300 thousand euros in cashwith a protocol that included the emission of receipts of the operation to the heads of the Russian organization.
Customers of the now dismantled network were “the Criminal Organizations Albanian, Serbia, Armenia, Chinese, Ukrainian, Colombian” and the Mafia Macro, linked to the Netherlands, needed the National Police of Spain in a statement.
“The organization It charged its customers a percentage of each busy amountwhich oscillated between 2 and 3% of the white money, ”he added.
According to the Judicial Police (PJ), the suspects “used intermediaries to move the money (Hawala Method), obtained above all through the drug traffickingusing their own business networks to whiten the collected backgrounds. ”
One person had “set residence in Lisbon” and was in the meantime.
The home search, carried out by the National PJ’s National Damaged Trafficking Unit, allowed the seizure of “a considerable amount of money, electronic and computer equipment, and bank documentation”.
The investigation, called Strongbox, began in 2023, after being detected in Spain collections and systematic money delivery by Russian citizens to people of various nationalities, the National Police tells.
Of the 14 detainees, three, closer to the top of the Russian mafia, were in pre -trial detention in Spain.
The authorities do not rule out “future arrests.”
