Wednesday, July 27,2011

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=410695&CategoryId=12393

MADRID – The Spanish Civil Guard has dismantled the money-laundering ring of one of South America’s biggest drug cartels, arresting the girlfriend of a Colombian kingpin who is already behind bars in the United States.

The agents took nine people into custody – four of Spanish nationality, four Colombians and one Armenian – in the eastern town of Ribarroja del Turia, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday in a communique.

Seven other people are being sought by police.

The investigations, which began in June 2010, uncovered the fact that in Spain the organization was receiving large sums of drug-trafficking money from Colombia, Mexico and Panama.

The money was earmarked for buying up land and buildings in such areas as Madrid, Guadalajara, Malaga, Barcelona, the Balearic Islands and Valencia.

The militarized national police also discovered that the ring included a network of companies dealing in pawned jewelry and gold buying, which they then melted down and made into ingots with a blackened-copper color to elude border inspections.

As part of the operation, the Civil Guard searched 12 homes on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.

Seized in the searches were 15 luxury vehicles and a total of 1.4 million euros ($2 million) in cash, while 30 properties worth more than 12 million euros ($17 million) were embargoed.

The leader of the ring was described as the girlfriend of erstwhile Colombian drug lord Luis Agustin Caicedo Velandia.

Before becoming one of the world’s most-wanted drug traffickers, “Don Lucho,” as he is known, was an investigator for the Colombian Attorney General’s Office.

His El Dorado cartel laundered more than $1.5 billion in drug money during the period 2005-2009.

In April 2010, Caicedo Velandia was arrested in Buenos Aires and extradited to the United States, where he remains imprisoned. EFE