Moment of the arrest of the drug trafficker in his home in Marbella Illustrated Service (Automatic) / Europa Press
The National Police have arrested a historic drug trafficker from the Cali cartel (Colombia) in Marbella.
The arrested man, MAH, of Dutch nationality and Colombian origin, had taken refuge on the Costa del Sol fleeing from police pressure in the Netherlands.
Former representative of Colombian drug traffickers in European territory, he lived in a Marbella luxury house since the summer of 2018, until an operation culminated in his arrest.
He is credited with laundering more than six million euros through cryptocurrencies.
The money came "from cocaine trafficking," as explained by the police.
The investigation began in 2018, when the police authorities located in the province of Malaga a criminal group related to historical figures of drug trafficking.
Although the organization was based in Malaga, the members had spread to different parts of the European geography.
One of them lived in the city of Delft, near Rotterdam, until he moved to the Costa del Sol in search of anonymity and luxury - as many other criminals do - and knowing that the Dutch police were following him.
It was about a person who until then had acted as a representative of the Cali cartel on European soil, especially in northern Europe.
He then started a joint operation between Spain and the Netherlands to arrest the criminal.
The agents discovered, during the time of surveillance and investigation, that their role in the criminal organization had changed.
It had ceased to be a direct intermediary in drug trafficking operations to focus on money laundering from drug trafficking.
To do this, he had specialized in cryptocurrencies and had created a company to market them.
In his Marbella home, in fact, several electronic devices from which he operated and a fortnight of credit cards with access to accounts with cryptocurrencies that were used for that work have been found.
The Dutch authorities estimate that the narco could have laundered more than six million euros in his new job.
During the searches carried out in the operation, the National Police seized 85,000 euros in cash, three luxury watches, fifteen credit cards, several laptops and various mobile phones that he used in his illicit work.
They have also seized a bank account and three cars, one of them high-end.
In parallel, at their home in Delft, in the Netherlands, the agents intervened $ 170,000 in cryptocurrencies, several wallets of this type of currency, documents and computer material.