Spanish police arrests head of huge European money-laundering ring By Reuters

MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish police stated on Thursday they’d arrested the pinnacle of certainly one of Europe’s greatest money-laundering rings, which had ties to a Costa del Sol drug gang and used the sale of high-end vodka to eating places as a canopy.

A police spokesman informed Reuters in a phonecall that John Francis Morrissey, the high-profile ringleader of the gang and head of the Spanish operation, was arrested on Monday.

In whole, three folks have been arrested in Spain and one in England, police stated in a press release.

The ring was dismantled throughout a joint worldwide Europol operation often known as “Whitewall”, they stated.

The felony community laundered greater than 200 million euros in beneath a yr and a half, or as much as 350,000 euros a day, they stated.

The cash-laundering ring used the so-called “hawala” conventional cash switch system, extensively utilized in Pakistan and the Center East, that enables cash to be exchanged between merchants by way of a handshake, a bit of paper or on belief.

Police stated that Morrissey had ties to the Irish “Kinahan Clan”, a drug trafficking gang working out of Spain’s Costa del Sol, and was “devoted to amassing giant quantities of money from felony organizations that function in our nation”.

He was arrested throughout an operation supported by operatives from the UK’s Nationwide Crime Company, the Irish Garda police, the American Drug Enforcement Administration, the Dutch police and Europol’s Monetary and Financial Crimes unit.

Police stated they’d began monitoring the group after seizing cocaine and money hidden in vehicles in Malaga final yr.

The community traded in premium manufacturers, certainly one of them a luxurious vodka model promoted in high eating places and nightclubs in southern Spain, however the Spanish tax company stated this commerce “may by no means help” the ring’s life-style, police stated.