Free Republic

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...

MADRID (Reuters) - A Moroccan man suffocated while being smuggled to Spain in a suitcase stowed in the boot of a car, the Spanish government said on Monday. The 27-year-old man, whose name was not made public, was found dead after the car arrived at the port of Almeria on a ferry from Melilla, a Spanish enclave in North Africa. The car's owner, the dead man's brother, was arrested for murder, a government spokesman in the city said. The brother raised the alarm about the stowaway's condition when the ferry docked in Spain but emergency services could do nothing to...