Spain has arrested one of its top police officers after 20 million euros were found hidden in the walls of his house, as part of a probe into the country’s largest-ever cocaine bust.
Described as discreet and hard-working, Oscar Sanchez Gil was until recently the head of the fraud and anti-money laundering division of Spain’s National Police force in Madrid.
Officers arrested him last week along with 15 other people, including his romantic partner who is also a police officer in the Madrid region, a police source told AFP without naming her.
During the raid, police found 20 million euros ($21 million) in cash hidden in the walls and ceilings of the couple’s home in Alcala de Henares, a town of around 195,000 inhabitants located some 30 kilometres (18 miles) east of the Spanish capital.
Officers also uncovered one million euros in his office, hidden in two locked cupboards, in bills of 50 to 500 euros, according to the police source.
The couple have been charged with drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and membership in a criminal organisation after last week appearing before a Madrid court, which remanded them in custody, a judicial source told AFP.
Spanish media said the arrests were linked to the seizure last month of 13 tonnes of cocaine that arrived in the southern port of Algeciras from Ecuador’s largest city Guayaquil — a drug-trafficking hub — hidden amongst crates of bananas.
Police said the drug bust– which they only announced last week — is the largest-ever haul of cocaine in Spain and “one of the largest seizures in the world”.
The container was destined for a Spanish importer based in the southeastern coastal town of Alicante “who had been receiving large quantities of fruit imported from Ecuador for years”, the authorities said.
Pablo Escobar comparison
Police searched several homes and offices in Madrid and Alicante after the cocaine seizure. These operations uncovered links between the importer and Sanchez Gil, according to Spanish media reports.
He was already under suspicion by his colleagues who had tapped his phone, daily newspaper El Mundo reported.
The father-of-three, who is in his 40s and lives in a brick house protected by metal gates, is suspected of having worked for the drug traffickers for “at least five years”, a source told the newspaper.
During these years, he allegedly provided them with information on the surveillance of containers in Spanish ports, which enabled them to avoid checks, according to a source close to the investigation.
While his lifestyle was not ostentatious, the large sums of money found in his home led police officers quoted by El Mundo to compare his house “to that of Pablo Escobar”, the notorious Colombian drug baron who was shot dead by police in 1993.
A nephew of Escobar once said he found a plastic bag with money worth $18 million hidden in the wall of one of his uncle’s houses.
Part of the money Sanchez Gil amassed in recent years was laundered through the purchase of crypto-currencies and a large fleet of private hire vehicles registered in the name of one of his relatives, El Mundo reported.
Spain is a main entry point for drugs into Europe because of its close ties with former colonies in Latin America such as major cocaine producers Colombia and Peru, and its proximity to Morocco, a top cannabis producer.
(AFP)