A senior Madrid police officer was recently imprisoned 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, he headed the prestigious unit for combating economic and tax crimes (UDEF) of the Spanish police in Madrid until a few days ago. Supposed to fight against money laundering, particularly linked to drug trafficking, Óscar Sánchez Gil, conversely, put a coin in this machine that he was supposed to stop.
The manager, suspected of being paid to work closely with drug traffickers for at least five years, was arrested “last week” with “fifteen other people”, including his partner, also a police officer in the Madrid region, a police source announced to AFP on Tuesday, November 12.
Millions of euros discovered within its walls
During this search, 20 million euros in cash were discovered in the walls and ceilings of the house of the man aged around forty in Alcalá de Henares, a town of 195,000 inhabitants located in 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” et “membership of a criminal organization”and placed them in pre-trial detention, according to a judicial source.
According to Spanish media, these arrests are linked to a seizure made in mid-October of 13 tons of cocaine in the port of Algeciras, in Andalusia (south), camouflaged among bananas in a container coming from Ecuador. This operation, announced last Wednesday, was presented by the Spanish authorities as “the largest seizure in the history of drug trafficking in Spain” et “one of the largest in the world”.
The container, coming from the port of Guayaquil, was intended according to the police “to a Spanish importer” based in Alicante (south-east) “which 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.
“Pablo Escobar” in Spanish
Investigators suspect this senior police officer of having carried out in the past «transactions» with this importer, via a company he owns. For almost five years, Oscar Sánchez Gil allegedly provided traffickers with information on the surveillance of containers in Spanish ports, which allowed them to avoid controls, according to a source close to the investigation.
Part of the money amassed by the former head of the anti-money laundering unit would have been laundered via the purchase of cryptocurrencies and a large fleet of VTCs, declared in the name of one of his relatives. And if his lifestyle was in no way ostentatious, the large sums of money found at Oscar Sánchez Gil's home led the police, cited by The Worldto compare his house “like that of Pablo Escobar”the notorious Colombian drug lord.
