The National Police has dismantled one of the most professionalized and violent organized crime clans on the Costa del Sol. Its leader, Karim Bouyakhrichan, arrested in Marbella a week ago, is one of the most wanted fugitives in the Netherlands, where he had threatened several members of the Royal House and the Dutch Government, and Spanish investigators had been hot on his heels for five years in Spain, one of his countries of residence.
His arrest means the dismantling of the so-called
Mocro Maffía
, criminal networks formed by Dutch citizens of Maghreb origin even though they come from or are settled in European countries.
Along with him, six other people have been arrested, among whom are several Spanish front men, with whom they would have laundered “at least six million euros,” according to the investigations.
The police strike against this multinational criminal organization, with branches in Dubai, the Dominican Republic and Morocco, has been accurate and has been directed directly against the powerful business and financial network that supported the organization.
Agents from the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) have blocked 172 properties, mainly large mansions in Marbella valued at more than 50 million euros;
and 178 bank accounts with three million euros in balance have been seized.
The economic base of the group came from drug trafficking, since they maintained relations with cartels in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, as investigators explained this Wednesday in a press conference.
And the main way to launder money was through real estate investments.
The presence of this violent group was confirmed by the Spanish police after the shooting death outside a pub in Benahavís (Málaga), on August 28, 2014, of Samir Bouyakhrichan, alias
Scarface
, the brother of the now detained Karim Bouyakhrichan .
This point-blank execution was followed by others as a way of settling scores with rival clans, such as the Taghi, or the murder of Dutch investigative journalist Peter R. de Vries.
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The Police consider Bouyakhrichan to have half a dozen identities and nationalities, "a historical drug trafficker from the Costa del Sol", involved in numerous police investigations, since for years he served as a connection point in Spain with various international criminal organizations involved in the international cocaine trafficking.
Karim fled to the Dominican Republic trying to avoid his arrest in an investigation and returned to Spain in 2019. The agents have warned that it is a network of “international dimension” and with great business and commercial sophistication — with a presence mainly in Malaga, Barcelona, Melilla or Marbella as well as abroad—, with companies and covers in different countries, and with the capacity to carry out diversionary operations to hide the money even with the Spanish embassy in Thailand.
“They look for places that have no connection with them,” explain the researchers, who have highlighted their dangerous ability to
drill into
institutions and port areas in different European countries to move their drug shipments.
Karim Bouyakhrichan, who was sent by court order to the Alhaurín de la Torre prison (Málaga) after his arrest, will be tried in Spain before being extradited to the Netherlands.
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