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, until a few days ago Oscar Sánchez Gil held 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 told AFP on Tuesday.
During this search, 20 million euros in cash were discovered in the walls and ceilings of his house in Alcalá de Henares, a town of 195,000 inhabitants located 30 kilometers east of Madrid.
At the end of their searches, investigators also found one million euros in his office, in denominations of 50 to 500 euros, hidden in two locked cabinets, according to the same police source.
At the end of their police custody, Óscar Sánchez 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.
The latter indicted them for “drug trafficking”, “corruption”, “money laundering” and “membership of a criminal organization”, and placed them in pre-trial detention, according to a judicial source.
13 tons of cocaine
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, camouflaged among bananas in a container coming from Ecuador.
This seizure, announced last Wednesday, was presented by the Spanish authorities as “the largest seizure in the history of drug trafficking in Spain” and “one of the largest seizures globally”.
Photo JORGE GUERRERO / AFP
The container, coming from the port of Guayaquil, was intended according to the police “to a Spanish importer” based in Alicante (south-east) “who had for years received large quantities of fruit imported from Ecuador”.
After this seizure, several homes and offices were searched in Madrid and Alicante. Operations which made it possible, according to these media, to uncover links between the importer and Oscar Sánchez Gil.
According to the television channel La Sexta, investigators suspect this senior police officer of having carried out “transactions” in the past with this importer, via a company he owns.
Cryptocurrencies and VTC
According to the daily El Mundo, the head of the unit for combating economic crimes, who passed through the brigade fighting against drug trafficking, was already in the sights of his colleagues, who had wiretapped him.
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 in no way 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 Colombian drug lord died in 1993.
According to this daily, part of the money amassed by Mr. Sánchez Gil in recent years was allegedly laundered through the purchase of cryptocurrencies and a large fleet of VTCs, declared in the name of one of his relatives.
