The Central UDYCO and the Internal Affairs Unit (UAI) of the National Police discovered that Óscar Sánchez Gil, the chief inspector who heads the Economic Crimes Section of the Madrid Police Headquarters, For years, it has been facilitating the entry into Spain of containers containing large caches of drugs. An agent who has built his reputation precisely in the fight against drug trafficking would facilitate the work of certain international organizations.
This is what various judicial sources familiar with the investigation underline to EL ESPAÑOL. ordered by the National Court. This arrest shocked the Drugs and Organized Crime Unit, as many knew this agent after many years of work in the fight against drug trafficking. Sánchez Gil belonged to the Central Drug Brigade for many years.
Then they transferred him to Madrid, his current destination, to a unit that handled cases like that of José Luis Moreno in Operation Titella. The judge, taking into account the overwhelming evidence and the evidence presented by investigators against him and his wife, also a police officer assigned to the Alcalá de Henares police station, ordered his imprisonment.
The investigators and former colleagues of Sánchez Gil’s UDYCO Central, as well as agents of Internal Affairs, were found in his house in Alcalá near 20 million euros hidden on the walls of the house. These were the benefits they would have obtained through their collaboration with these organizations.
The arrest, according to the sources consulted, was hastened after the discovery, barely a week ago, of the largest cache of cocaine in history ever intercepted in Spain. He is under investigation for money laundering and corruption. The complaint from the anti-drug prosecution was filed last June, and that is when the investigations against this chief inspector began.
Some of the bullets seized during the operation, as well as the detained police chief, Óscar Sánchez Gil.
According to the images of the operation to which EL ESPAÑOL had access, in one of the houses of this operation they were also found various high-end vehicles, including several BMWs. Agents are investigating the connection between the commander and his partner with the cache seized several weeks ago andn the port of Algeciras.
This is the largest cache ever seized in Spain. There were more than 13 tons of drugs hidden in banana crates, a multi-million dollar business with a lot of blood behind it. The value of the goods on the street was 780 million euros.
Behind this operation would be the dreaded Balkan Cartel, which brings together organizations from different Eastern European countries. This organization, one of the most dangerous in Europe, has recently been the subject of various police attacks by the National Police and the Civil Guard.
What investigators are trying to find out is whether this chief inspector and his wife were in the pay of this organization.
The operation remains open. There are 15 inmates in total. All have already been sent to temporary prison, according to judicial sources. Among those arrested are two law enforcement officers, namely the chief inspector and his wife. The rest are drug traffickers, criminals engaged in money laundering, etc.
After the capture of the police commander and his partner, further arrests could not be made. It is for this reason that investigators are looking for a couple who managed the fruit import company (Abadix Fruits). This was a company that would have served as cover for the network. Both fled their villa in El Campello (Alicante) after emptying the house’s two safes after learning of the discovery of the huge drug shipment.
According to researchers, the route of this commodity is one of the most common for transporting large quantities of cocaine to the Iberian Peninsula: Ecuador-Spain. Interior investigators, according to sources consulted by this newspaper, are investigating possible companies associated with the police officer, as well as all the assets he may have in the form of cryptocurrencies.
According to investigation sources, the detainees are accused of offenses of drug trafficking, corruption, money laundering, criminal organization and the omission of the obligation to prosecute crimes. Given the scale of the operation, it is managed from the JCentral Court of Instruction number 1 of the National Court.
This operation, in which, according to the sources consulted, the head of the Madrid Police Laundering Group was involved, was carried out by the national police in collaboration with the customs surveillance service of the tax administration. This is the second largest intervention in all of Europe (the largest in a single container) and one of the largest in the world.
The agents carried out five entries and searches in homes and offices in Madrid and Alicante, and one person was arrested, while the two managers of the importing company are being searched and arrested.
One of these entries took place in the police officer’s office. There, according to the sources consulted, a million euros. In their house in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), they found 20 million hidden in a double bottom of the walls of the house, walled behind the walls of their house.
The operation
The operation to which it would be linked began with a container that would have set sail from the port of Guayaquil (Ecuador), from where it would go to Algeciras. The Ecuadorian exporter was listed in customs and police databases with a history of illicit trafficking. Upon arrival at the port of Algeciras, the container was inspected and discrepancies were detected between the declared cargo and the actual cargo, leading to the opening, which took place on October 14.
Another of the vehicles seized in the plot.
The contaminated container had a screen made of boxes loaded with bananas to hide the drugs. Behind this screen were a large number of boxes, identical to the previous ones, but inside which were hidden bricks of cocaine packaged to the exact size of these boxes.
Following this discovery, after the first procedure, five judicial searches were carried out by order of the Court of Instruction No. 3 of Algeciras – four in Alicante and the province, and one in Madrid -, with the intervention of abundant documentation which will be analyzed by the investigators. In addition, a woman, an associate of the company to which the shipment was sent, was arrested in Toledo, while the two managers of the importing company are on the run.
National Police officers and members of the Tax Administration’s Customs Surveillance Service took part in a historic operation that surpasses the largest seizures recorded in Spain to date. (9.4 tonnes in 2023 and 8.7 tonnes in 2018).
This was possible thanks to the close cooperation of the National Police of Ecuador with the Spanish authorities, since the participation of the National Directorate of Anti-Drug Investigations of the Ecuadorian Police made it possible to profile the shipment and alert the investigators in Spain to carry out the investigation. analysis and in-depth inspection of the container.
