• Alicante: The 'businesses' of the Russian mafia

  • The network: The Russian mafia laundering plot sought to control the nightlife sector in Levante and the Balearic Islands

  • Detentions The Councilor for Security of Benidorm, among the 23 detainees of a money laundering network of the Russian mafia

The note from the Ministry of the Interior was blunt: "Due to the high hierarchical position of those investigated, this is the largest investigation against the mafias of eastern Europe carried out in our country in the last 10 years." This Wednesday, the judge who The cause ordered the release without bail of the one who, according to police investigations, was the leader of this network in Spain,

Alexey Shirokov

. The head of the investigating court number 1 of Benidorm (Alicante) aco

He was released without bail with the withdrawal of his passport and the prohibition of leaving Spain.

He was the last of the detainees to remain in prison for his alleged participation in this network.

National Police

placed the now released as one of the most responsible for a dense network of money laundering Russian gangsters.

He was considered the link of the plot with

political and police contacts

From the investigation, they directly linked the now released prisoner without bail with leaders of the

Popular Party

from the Alicante area and with National Police commands in the same area.

The facts investigated

In its note, Interior specified that this disjointed network "planned to control key sectors of the Spanish economy and infiltrate state institutions, counting on lawyers, officials, politicians, businessmen and women for this purpose.

hackers

IT ". The Police carried out 18 entries and searches -

Alicante

,

Madrid

,

Tarragona

and

Ibiza

-, where firearms were intervened -among them, four from war-, 300,000 euros in cash, diamonds and virtual wallets with cryptocurrencies.

And it arrested 23 allegedly implicated in this network that, according to the agents, intended to take over the gambling business in the entire Mediterranean area. According to the official Interior report, the investigation began in 2013, when the agents detected that the Russian mafia had intensified its activities in Spain, using it as an entry point for the money laundering of criminal organizations from the former Soviet Union. The money from its various criminal activities was invested in Spanish businesses, mainly in discos, restaurants and the sector real estate on the Spanish coast.

Likewise, they made use of the enormous economic amounts they introduced to corrupt and infiltrate public institutions.

Telephone taps, legal?

The defense of the now released prisoner presented a report before the investigating judge in which he denounced irregularities in the investigations, mainly in the telephone interventions, and the absence of "rational evidence of criminality." Shirokov had been in prison since December 14.

Your lawyers,

Maria Dolores Marquez de Prado

and

Ignacio Martínez-Arrieta

, denounce that there were phases of the investigation in which telephone interventions were carried out "without legal coverage." They recall in their brief that on July 7, 2017, the judge agreed to intervene in the communications for six months "for the alleged participation in a crime of bribery within a network related to a criminal organization for money laundering. "The investigator had to rectify her files to authorize interventions for periods of three months.

But it is in this rectification phase that, according to Shirokov's defense, there is a gap in legal coverage for a month.

"Continue with your commercial work"

The defense points out that, according to current legislation, "the maximum period of intervention is 18 months, time that was fulfilled on January 6, 2019."

Since then, according to his lawyer, the entire telephone intervention has been "without legal coverage." The Police, in their writings to renew the interventions, denounced that Shirokov "continues with his commercial advisory work on immigration matters, which seems to involve relations of favor with members of the State Security Forces, which he combines with his real estate activities -many times favored by his political contacts-, in addition to providing all kinds of services to his Russian clients, some of which could be criminal "." In short, our client has had his communications intervened from July 7, 2017 until the day of his arrest, December 14, 2020, that is, 41 months and seven days, which exceeds the limit by 23 months and 7 days. legally disposed of, "sums up the lawyer. According to Interior, the dismantled network laundered money from" criminal activities that include murder, extortion, drug trafficking, weapons,

trafficking in human beings and

raids

business ".

The fate of money

"The profits of these criminal activities were invested in Spain in various businesses, mainly in leisure, the hotel and real estate sector, through Russian businessmen linked to both the

Thieves in Law

as with the Russian Crime Syndicates, "the official Interior note pointed out. According to the Police," those investigated had deployed a powerful clientelistic network within the Spanish Administration, achieving a perfect infiltration in the institutions of our country to carry out their businesses with impunity, resorting to bribery and influence peddling, both to facilitate their money laundering operations bypassing legal obstacles and achieving a series of administrative favors, and to protect themselves from police and judicial investigations. "

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