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Posted on 05/14/2025 11:10:00 AM PDT by nickcarraway
In a massive sting operation straight out of a crime thriller, Spanish police have smashed one of Europe’s most powerful underworld banks – a slick, secretive syndicate laundering millions using the ancient and shadowy “hawala” method.
Cash, crypto and contraband – the works.
In unbelievable scenes, Spain’s National Police, backed by EUROPOL and EUROJUST, swooped on a web of luxury and illegality. The secret January raids – now revealed – saw over 250 officers hit 13 locations across Spain and Belgium in a coordinated blitz, nabbing 17 suspects, seizing mountains of loot and blowing apart a money-moving machine that had slipped under the radar for years.
Among the spoils?
€205,000 in hard cash
€183,000 in crypto
18 flash motors worth €207,000
10 posh properties worth a jaw-dropping €2.5 million
Designer handbags topping €230,000
Luxury cigars valued at an eyebrow-raising €622,000
Fine wines worth over €7,000
Jewels, watches, gadgets – you name it
The gang’s operation, hailed as ‘the most powerful hawala network ever uncovered in Europe’ by UDEF investigators, was a tale of two mafias: one Arabic-rooted crew collecting cash worldwide, and one Chinese-based arm pumping the money into Spain – all while dodging official financial systems and pocketing fat profits in crypto.
The age-old trick with a modern twist
The hawala method, centuries-old and virtually untraceable, operates like a handshake banking system – no paper trail, no bank account, just trusted middlemen, called hawaladars, scribbling notes, pinging encrypted messages and moving millions under the noses of authorities.
Here, the Arabic faction acted as global collectors, scooping up dirty dosh from all corners and funnelling it into Spain. The Chinese faction? They played banker – dishing out the cash locally and collecting crypto as their cut. These money mules didn’t carry briefcases. No, they packed bundles into hidden compartments of their cars and drove it across Spain like some high-stakes Uber Eats for criminals.
Millions shifted in months
Investigators uncovered 32 transactions worth over €5.5 million in just three months. But that’s small change compared to what one ‘bridge address’ was hiding – $21 million channelled between June 2022 and September 2023.
The sheer scale led to a full-blown intelligence war room set up in Almeria, where Spain’s National Court (Juzgado de Instrucción No. 3) and the local Fiscalía monitored the action in real time via multiple screens. Police watched live as officers stormed homes and businesses in Madrid, Valencia, Malaga, Cadiz, Almeria and Belgium’s Antwerp, scooping up encrypted mobiles, laptops and digital ledgers that read like an underworld accountant’s diary.
Busted and behind bars
Out of the 17 arrested, 15 are now in jail, charged with money laundering and membership of a criminal organisation. According to reports, the Chinese branch – largely based in Madrid – was linked to human trafficking funds, while the Arabic faction was reinvesting profits into more illicit trades.
The hawaladar boss, described by EUROPOL as a ‘high-value target’, ran the books and assigned brokers to handle operations. His system was so slick it offered financial services to anyone: cartels, traffickers or even average Joes – no questions asked, just crypto and cash.
Social media savvy meets ancient crime
In a chillingly modern twist, this underground bank advertised on social media, luring clients worldwide and pretending to be a legitimate money transfer business. But behind the friendly Facebook posts was a vault of vice, propping up entire webs of criminal enterprise.
This wasn’t just money laundering – it was a black-market banking empire hiding in plain sight.
Game over for the ghost bank
This extraordinary sting marks a historic win for Spanish police. It’s a knock-out punch to a criminal colossus that’s been playing banker to the underworld for years. Spain’s shadow economy just lost its biggest lender.
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These guys had more Cuban cigars than I do.
The law enforcement folks really need to smoke em up—it would be beyond criminal to destroy them.
Lol.
I thought Cuban cigars were readily available in the EU?...............
Reminds me of the al Taqwa bank in Switzerland and F. Genoud
ping
Spain, Belgium, China...
Cigars suggest Cuba...
Hawalas are a big problem... they were used to rip off the SNAP/EBT programs in the US to help finance the 1993 WTC Bombing, for example.
DOJ: Mexican Cartel Used Middle Eastern Honor System to Launder U.S. Currency
Breitbart ^ | 3 Oct 2015 | Ildefonso Ortiz
Posted on 10/4/2015, 3:56:14 AM by george76
Court documents filed in federal court claim that a suspected drug traffickers linked to Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel used a Middle Eastern honor system to launder drug proceeds. Known as a Hawala, members of the conspiracy would be hired by cartel members in Canada and Mexico to move drug proceeds through the honor system that does not leave a paper trail as couriers move the money between countries.
“Drug traffickers in Canada would generate drug proceeds from multi-kilogram and multi-pound sales and distribution of drugs provided by Mexican cartels, including the Sinaloa Cartel,” court records obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed.
A Hawala need two brokers who would transfer the money between each other on a trust basis thus not leaving behind any promissory notes or legally binding documents for authorities to seize.
Federal authorities have arrested 15 members of the Sinaloa linked Hawala network and are searching for seven others who are all named in a criminal indictment.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Speaking of Antwerp and Belgium:
Inside Europe’s Cocaine Gateway: ‘A Repeat of Miami in the 1980s’
WSJ ^ | Dec 31 | By James Marson
Posted on 1/1/2022, 7:47:11 AM by RandFan
Antwerp, now the No. 1 port in Europe for cocaine busts, has seen a rise in gang violence and corruption
ANTWERP, Belgium—For centuries, goods flowing through the giant port here have enriched this elegant city, known for its diamonds, art and fashion.
Now a different import from across the Atlantic—cocaine—has unleashed a gusher of cash that officials say is swamping Antwerp with corruption, violence and economic distortion.
Authorities have seized 88 metric tons of cocaine stashed in containers from Latin America this year, nearly 10 times the figure in 2014....
Correct—Cuban cigars are legal in the EU.
However the island has had a brutal last few years—a perfect storm of Covid, hurricanes, government and economic collapse.
The result is cigar production is probably less than half of what it was pre Covid.
In some countries (like Spain) the government sets the prices for Cuban cigars while at the same time there is a quota (set by Cuban suppliers) for the country. As a result the Spanish inventory sells out quickly and is very difficult to maintain.
The solution—a black market that grabs inventory where it can around the world and provides it to where there is strong unmet demand (like Spain).
When I was in Germany in 2000, a Cuban cigar was going for $25 each equivalent at that time..............
Lenin (and/or possibly Stalin or Marx) are attributed with saying that “The capitalists will sell us the ropes we use to hang them.”
But nowadays,
our enemies (whether communist China, Moslem Islamicist terrorist gangsters, or Mexican drug cartelists, etc.) take (like, handouts from their syncophats and idiots in western governments) or take (like this, stealing) .... they use our money to attack, subvert us. This is even more clever and far more efficient than Lenin ever dreamed of.
alas.
There was a “golden age” of relatively inexpensive Cuban cigars (the entire catalog) that could be ordered over the Internet by mail (from Europe) up until late 2021 and delivered to the US.
This was because many of the smaller European countries were given quotas of Cuban cigars higher than they could sell at the retail level. Those retailers signed agreements with the Cuban cigar distributor promising they would not resell the cigars to other retailers. They lied—and sold their overstock to “other companies” on a routine basis.
Those “other companies” (a “gray market”) were created (based either in Switzerland or Eastern European countries) that ended up with huge warehouses full of Cuban cigars and shipped them to the US and around the world.
They were called “grey market” because it was legal for them to buy and sell Cuban cigars. What was “grey” was their suppliers violating their agreements with their distributors and selling cigars to places like the US where Cubans were illegal.
These “other companies” competed with each other on price and had excellent deals on a routine basis—often easily beating regulated Spanish prices (which are published on the Internet btw).
Nowadays it is much more expensive and difficult for Americans to buy Cuban cigars by mail—U.S. Customs enforcement has gotten much tighter.
In the good old days when I ordered Cubans I never had a box seized and I ordered a lifetime supply.
The boxes have labeling on them in more than a dozen different European languages—depending on which country the original “overstock” came from. The majority were from Eastern Europe.
Today there is better than a 50% chance than a given box will be seized by customs—and those large “other companies” are refusing to ship to the US for that reason.
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