Feb.02, 2010, 19:17

NINE of the eleven people accused of belonging to a money laundering network in Marbella have been absolved for lack of evidence. They were accused of assisting delinquents from different countries, most of them drug dealers, with laundering illegally obtained money amounting to 62.2 million euros between 2000 and 2004, and helping to cover up its origin.

According to the court, although they consider it highly likely that the money came from illegal activities, there is no actual proof of this, and although they obviously came into money and failed to declare part of it, this is a tax problem but not evidence of money laundering or illegal activities.

Only two people, a Spanish man believed to be the head of the network, and an Ecuadorian woman, have been sentenced to three years and three months each in prison and fines amounting to more than 700,000 euros.

The public prosecutor was asking for more than 80 years in prison for the accused and fines amounting to millions of euros. The prosecution claims that the network operated as car hire businesses and had contact with many known criminals. Despite the fact that the business did not go well, large amounts of money were seen to be passing through the company, and the accused obviously improved their quality of life. However, they claims that the contact they had with these foreign criminals was exclusively for the car hire business.