Anthony Piovesan
A Costa del Sol lawyer specialising in cases of drug trafficking has been arrested over allegedly working for ‘one of the most wanted drug traffickers in the world’ known by Spanish police as F.A.A.
The lawyer was one of ten suspects arrested as Guardia Civil seized 11 houses, 36 luxury cars, three boats, 5.1 tonnes of cocaine and more than €1 million in cash in a monster haul.
Guardia Civil carried out the second stage of the joint criminal operation with Europol, after the first phase in Barcelona in December last year led to the arrest of F.A.A, a Moroccan citizen considered by police as a ‘high value target’.
Searches were carried out in Barcelona, Almeria, Ceuta and Malaga, where the ‘right hand man’, known as A.A, of the Moroccan drug lord was arrested.
The recent ten arrests directly related to the organisation led by F.A.A, police said.
They were allegedly responsible for massive amounts of hashish and cocaine being delivered into Spain, as well as other European countries.
In Spain, the suspects allegedly brought in 117kg of hashish and 3,359 of cocaine.
The biggest haul was in Andalucia where 15,000kg of hashish was picked up in Huelva.
Another 4,360kg of hashish was seized in San Pedro de Pinatar in Murcia, while European authorities discovered 1,355kg of cocaine in Tangier and 1,003kg of hashish in France.
Police said the suspects were known to authorities since childhood.
Both F.A.A and A.A were from the Moroccan coastal city of Al Hoceima, where they were childhood friends.
They would fish together until they became the ‘largest suppliers of hashish known over the years’, the Guardia said.
The drugs would be stored on high-powered narco-boats out at sea and then transferred onto ships near the Portuguese coast.
From there, the drugs would sometimes be stored out at sea for months, before being transferred onto other vessels and taken to Iberian coast, or other respective destinations in Spain or across Europe.
Police said the group also had a sophisticated network of money laundering setup in Dubai, where ‘all the economic activities of the group were directed from’.
The group would send ‘mules’ transporting luxury watches, some of them collector’s items, to Spain with a market value of more than €800,000.
They also moved around in luxury yachts, while several companies based in the UK, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland and Turkey were used to launder money.
The investigation started at the start of 2020.
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