An international criminal network of drug trafficking and money laundering, active for eight years in the European Union and South America, has been dismantled in Portugal and Spain and 20 suspects arrested, the Judicial Police (PJ) said today.
Operation Montana was the result of cooperation between the Spanish and Portuguese police authorities, coordinated by Europol, which carried out 13 searches and 20 arrests on March 6 and 7.
The criminal network used stolen identities of Colombian, Portuguese, Spanish and Venezuelan citizens and is suspected of laundering more than 10 million euros.
According to the PJ, the network had been investigated since 2021 by the Spanish authorities – Mossos d’Esquadra and the National Police -, with an indication of the participation of Portuguese citizens, who transported the money and then deposited it in national bank accounts, held by Portuguese people with links to the Portuguese diaspora in Latin America.
In Portugal, two house searches were carried out in the Ílhavo and Aveiro areas, targeting the main suspect, who transported money from Spain to Portugal and who received instructions from the ringleaders of the criminal network to collect the money in Spain.
During transportation to Portugal, the money was hidden in the suspect’s vehicle and then deposited in Portuguese banks, in accounts held by other suspects, who belong to the Portuguese diaspora in Latin America, especially Venezuela.
The main Portuguese suspect did not live at his tax address in Ílhavo, but with his family in a “luxury villa” in the Aveiro area, owned by a company in his wife’s name, which was the target of searches, according to the PJ.
In the course of the searches, more than 40,000 euros in cash, money-counting machines, jewelry and gold bars, bank documents, a firearm and written notes were seized which, according to the PJ, link the detainee to money laundering from drug trafficking in Spain.
‘Operation Montana’ resulted in the seizure of 156,000 euros in cash, gold bars valued at 35,000 euros, 50 vehicles, jewelry and luxury watches, and the blocking of more than 100 bank accounts and 10 properties worth more than three million euros.
“The Spanish and Portuguese authorities are continuing their efforts to identify and locate other citizens involved in this money-laundering scheme,” the PJ said in a statement released today.
