Walter Finch
A COMPLEX narco money laundering operation on the Costa del Sol has been smashed with the arrest of a Dutch cartel boss in Marbella.
Police had been on the trail of Karim Bouyakhrichan, brother of notorious crime lord Samir Bouyakhrichan, also known as ‘Scarface’, for the last ten years.
While Samir was murdered outside a pub in Benahavís on August 28, 2014, his brother went on to lead the criminal network known as the mocro maffia – and even got revenge on his brother’s killer in Panama just months later.
Six others were arrested, including several front men from Spain who helped the Moroccan-origin gang launder ‘at least six million euros,’ according to the detectives.
Police have frozen at least 172 properties linked to the cartel, with many being luxury mansions in Marbella worth at least €50 million.
Karim is thought to head up a money-laundering operation valued in excess of €6 billion, as well as links with drug cartels in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
He is suspected of being the link man between the South American cartels and the Balkan cartel, Albanian mafia and other European criminal operations.
The importation of possibly hundreds of tonnes of cocaine into Europe through ports in Spain, Belgium and Holland produced millions of euros of money that needed laundering.
They did it through purchasing luxury properties in Marbella as well as maritime and commercial infrastructure in Malaga, Barcelona, ??Melilla or Marbella and abroad.
His arrest will be keenly noted in his native Holland, where he is accused of making threats against members of the Dutch royal family on top of wholesale drug trafficking.
“Wow,” was the simple verdict from one counternarcotics source in Holland to the Olive Press when news of the arrest broke.
A spokesman for the Hague Public Prosecutor’s Office revealed that the kingpin’s extradition had already been requested.
