Spain: One of the Europe's largest money-laundering operations was uncovered in southern Spain this weekend. The case - codenamed Operation Ballena Blanca (White Whale) - is the result of more than a year of investigations involving police forces across Europe.
There are suspicions that the Russian oil company, Yukos, recently taken over by the state, could have been using Spain to launder its ill-gotten gains.
It is estimated that at least €600 million was laundered through phantom companies and property deals along the Costa del Sol using fictitious companies, some based in Gibraltar.
The use of Gibraltar offshore companies has long caused concern in Europe. Brussels recently gave Gibraltar five years to close down these phantom firms.
Operation White Whale began in September 2003 when French police requested information on a Spanish-based company which was believed to be involved in drug-trafficking. It was during these investigations that a much wider network emerged, many of them using a Marbella law firm DVA (del Valle Abogados). The lawyer, Fernando del Valle, gave himself up at Marbella court house yesterday, and was interrogated throughout the day.
Police searched his offices in Marbella and nearby San Pedro de Alcantara, and were seen carrying out dozens of boxes of papers, files and computer records. In total 41 people, including lawyers and public notaries, were detained for questioning. The detainees are British, French, Dutch, Finnish, Moroccan, Russian and Ukrainian. The questioning was slowed down while interpreters in those languages could be called in.
Investigating magistrate Miguel Angel Torres set bail of up to €50,000 before releasing most of detainees, but insisted on payment in cash. "They had to have a collection to raise the funds," said a lawyer representing one of the suspects.
In a series of raids along the coast, stretching from Malaga to Sotogrande, near Gibraltar, they confiscated 251 properties, including two entire housing developments - one finished and one still under construction - and 42 Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Porsche and Mercedes cars. "And that doesn't include the dozens of other ordinary vehicles," said one police officer. These include a yacht, two private planes, quad bikes, jewellery, Picasso and Miró paintings, bank accounts and cash.
A police officer said that "€500 million is only a very conservative estimate. There was more than €30 million in bank accounts and we seized €410,000 in cash, and the €1.2 million for each of the planes was a figure we found on the internet."
The area earned the nickname Costa del Crime when it became a haven for British crooks before a bilateral extradition treaty between Spain and the UK was signed. On the whole these Costa crooks, as they were dubbed, caused little trouble, not wanting to draw attention to themselves.
But the title now has more sinister connotations since the arrival of criminal gangs, many from Eastern Europe, who invest funds in property development and apartment blocks to launder their financial gains.
It has become a popular haunt for Russian millionaires, some of whom buy large properties on the coast where they and their families set up home - and commute to Russia for business.
One Marbella lawyer, not connected with the case, said it was nothing unusual for him to handle a property purchase for Russian clients who paid with suitcases full of US dollars.
Police divide the foreign criminal elements into three groups: drug dealers who bring hashish and marijuana from Morocco; big organised crime gangs involved in extortion, kidnapping and contract killing; and, more recently, gangs from Eastern Europe who break in and steal from luxury homes or rob expensive cars.
In recent years they have become violent and carried out revenge killings, resulting in at least 10 deaths. Last January a seven-year-old child and a male hairdresser were killed when two rival gangs fought a gun battle in a Marbella shopping arcade where the child was playing and the barber working in his salon.
"This is only just the tip of the iceberg," said one of the officers on the weekend case. "We don't know where it will lead."