• This is the second phase of an investigation that began in February 2022 with the arrest of one accused and three more and one investigated in the month of December for a drug trafficking crime.

May 29, 2024.- Customs Surveillance Officials of the Tax Agency in a joint operation with the National Police have brought to light the origin of the assets of a criminal organization that would have obtained more of half a million euros from drug trafficking. They are charged with a crime of money laundering combined with the crime of belonging to a criminal organization and a crime against public health for which they were already arrested in December 2022.

The investigation began in 2022 within the framework of Operation Atlantis when National Police agents from the León Provincial Police Station were investigating the commission of a crime against public health. The investigators followed the steps of a man who was in charge of managing drivers with the purpose of introducing drugs into the city of León for the subsequent distribution of narcotic substances. The vehicles they used were the property of one of the accused and they hid the drugs in hidden spaces, holes known as 'caletas'.

In the first phase of the investigation and as a result of the home searches carried out, with the pertinent judicial authorization, 4 kilos of cocaine and 33,000 euros in cash were seized, as well as drug disposal equipment and various vehicles, proceeding to the arrest of three individuals and one more investigated, all of them for a crime against public health.

It was suspected from the beginning that the profits obtained from the sale of cocaine were being laundered through two companies, one of them dedicated to the operation of nightlife venues and the other related to construction, which is why the investigation continued after the arrests.

That is why, despite the money seized from those investigated at the time of the arrests, which amounted to 33,000 euros in cash, the Provincial Police Station of León coordinated with the Tax Agency of this capital in order to investigate the accounts more exhaustively. of the detainees, as well as those around them, have carried out an investigation that, after its completion, results in the appearance of more than half a million euros, distributed in bank accounts, real estate and financial assets.

The work carried out by Customs Surveillance agents carrying out a laborious investigation has focused not only on the detainees but also on their environment.

The investigators, after scrutinizing the balances of their bank accounts and their real estate transactions, have found important financial discrepancies.

Those investigated used twenty-six checking accounts in the name of third parties, including minors, and legal entities, being participants in various financial assets through which they laundered significant sums of money whose origin was in the distribution of narcotic substances, without any other information being recorded. activity that could justify the income that appeared in those bank accounts.

Statements have been taken from eight witnesses who have come to corroborate the investigators' suspicions, revealing the level of specialization of the criminal organization to which they belonged.

One of those investigated is currently in prison serving a six-year sentence and a fine of one million euros, who along with three other people face a new crime as alleged perpetrators, in this case of money laundering. , and whose authors, according to the current Penal Code, which ranges between 6 months and 6 years in prison, in addition to responding with a fine of three times the amount of money defrauded.