Part of the 13 tonnes of cocaine intercepted in mid-October in Algeciras, a seizure which made it possible to establish the link between the senior police officer who served as an informant to the drug traffickers.
AFP
Twenty million euros in cash were hidden in the walls of his house: a senior police officer was imprisoned in Spain for his alleged links with drug traffickers, as part of an investigation that led to a record seizure of cocaine.
Described as discreet and hardworking, Oscar Sanchez Gil held until a few days ago the prestigious position of head of the unit for combating economic and tax crimes (UDEF) of the Spanish police in Madrid.
He was arrested last week with fifteen other people, including his partner, also a police officer in the Madrid region, a police source said on Tuesday.
Twenty million at home, a million at the office
During this search, 20 million euros in cash were discovered in the walls and ceilings of his house in Alcalá de Henares, a town located around thirty kilometers from Madrid.
During the searches, investigators also found bills of 50 to 500 euros in the suspect's office, for a total amount of one million. This money was hidden in two locked cabinets, according to the same police source.
At the end of their custody, Oscar Sanchez Gil and his wife were presented to a judge of the National Court, the Madrid court responsible for the most serious and complex criminal cases. They were indicted for “drug trafficking”, “corruption”, “money laundering” and “membership of a criminal organization” and placed in pre-trial detention, according to a judicial source.
Largest drug seizure in Spain
According to Spanish media, these arrests are linked to the seizure, on October 14, of 13 tons of cocaine in the port of Algeciras, in Andalusia. The drugs were camouflaged among bananas in a container coming from Ecuador. This operation was presented by the Spanish authorities as “the largest seizure in the history of drug trafficking in Spain” and “one of the largest seizures worldwide”.
The container, coming from the port of Guayaquil, was intended according to the police “to a Spanish importer” based in Alicante “who had for years received large quantities of fruit imported from Ecuador”.
Links between the suspect and the traffickers
After this seizure, several homes and offices were searched in Madrid and Alicante. Operations which, according to these media, made it possible to reveal links between the Alicante importer and Oscar Sanchez Gil.
According to the television channel La Sexta, investigators suspect the senior police officer of having carried out “transactions” in the past with this importer, via a company he owns.
According to the daily “El Mundo”, the head of the unit for combating economic crimes, who worked with the brigade for combating drug trafficking, was already in the sights of his colleagues, who had wiretapped him.
He informed them of the planned checks
This father of three children, installed in a brick house protected by metal grilles, would in reality have probably worked for “at least five years” for traffickers, according to a source cited by the daily.
During these years, this forty-year-old would have provided them with information on the surveillance of containers in Spanish ports, which would have allowed them to avoid controls, according to a source close to the investigation.
If his lifestyle was not ostentatious, the large sums of money found at his home led police officers, cited by “El Mundo”, to compare his house “to that of Pablo Escobar”, the famous baron of Colombian drug addict died in 1993.
According to this daily, part of the money amassed by Oscar Sanchez Gil in recent years was laundered through the purchase of cryptocurrencies and a large fleet of VTCs, declared in the name of one of his relatives.
(afp)
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