Spanish and Portuguese authorities have dismantled a criminal network, primarily composed of Russian nationals, that allegedly laundered millions of euros for organized crime groups across Europe, law enforcement authorities said Wednesday.
The Spanish National Police arrested 14 people suspected of running a money laundering operation that processed several million euros per month. The network reportedly charged a two to three percent fee for its services, catering to criminal organizations from Albania, Serbia, Armenia, China, Ukraine, Colombia, and other countries.
According to Europol—which coordinated the operation—the group primarily laundered cash from drug trafficking using the hawala system, an informal, cashless money transfer network based on trusted brokers. Common in the Middle East and South Asia, hawala allows depositors to hand over cash to a broker in one location, who then directs a counterpart elsewhere to distribute the equivalent sum.
In Spain, the group operated from multiple offices across various cities, each managed by a “cashier” responsible for daily cash transactions. Some deliveries and pickups reached nearly 300,000 euros ($314,000), police said.
Authorities launched the investigation in 2023 after detecting systematic cash collection and distribution activity by Russian organized crime figures in different parts of Spain. As the probe expanded, investigators uncovered the network’s global reach, linking it to criminal operations in the Netherlands, Estonia, Lithuania, and Italy.
During the January 21 raid, Spanish and Portuguese authorities also searched nine properties, seizing more than 1 million euros ($1.05 million) in cash and cryptocurrencies.
