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The Spanish Civil Guard has dismantled the money-laundering ring of one of South America’s biggest drug cartels, arresting the girlfriend of a Colombian kingpin who is already behind bars in the United States.
The agents took nine people into custody – four of Spanish nationality, four Colombians and one Armenian – in the eastern town of Ribarroja del Turia, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday in a communique.
Seven other people are being sought by police.
The investigations, which began in June 2010, uncovered the fact that in Spain the organization was receiving large sums of drug-trafficking money from Colombia, Mexico and Panama.
The money was earmarked for buying up land and buildings in such areas as Madrid, Guadalajara, Malaga, Barcelona, the Balearic Islands and Valencia.
The militarized national police also discovered that the ring included a network of companies dealing in pawned jewelry and gold buying, which they then melted down and made into ingots with a blackened-copper color to elude border inspections.
As part of the operation, the Civil Guard searched 12 homes on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.
Seized in the searches were 15 luxury vehicles and a total of 1.4 million euros ($2 million) in cash, while 30 properties worth more than 12 million euros ($17 million) were embargoed.
The leader of the ring was described as the girlfriend of erstwhile Colombian drug lord Luis Agustin Caicedo Velandia.
Before becoming one of the world’s most-wanted drug traffickers, “Don Lucho,” as he is known, was an investigator for the Colombian Attorney General’s Office.
His El Dorado cartel laundered more than $1.5 billion in drug money during the period 2005-2009.
In April 2010, Caicedo Velandia was arrested in Buenos Aires and extradited to the United States, where he remains imprisoned. EFE
The men, Kirk Bradley and Anthony Downes, escaped on Monday 18 July when the prison van they were travelling in was attacked by a gang armed with guns and baseball bats. At the time they were on their way from HMP Manchester to a court in Liverpool to face firearms charges. The security van driver and his passenger were taken to hospital though they are not thought to be badly hurt. The attackers escaped with the prisoners in a car.
SOCA believes that because of long-standing links the men may be attempting to travel to Spain, or may even already be there. Downes is known to be an associate of Kevin Parle, another fugitive on the Crimestoppers 'most wanted' list, who is thought to be in Spain and is wanted in connection with two murders in Liverpool.
SOCA's Frank Francis said:
"These are dangerous men and it is very important that nobody approaches them. We are asking people who think they may have seen them to call Crimestoppers, either in Spain or in the UK. You can do this free, and completely anonymously. Our priority is getting these two back into custody as soon as possible."
Kirk Trevor Bradley is 25 years old, 5'10", of proportionate build, with green eyes and cropped black hair. He has a Liverpool accent. Anthony Downes, 
Anthony DOWNES (AKA: Fat Tony) DoB 16/02/1986
also known to associates as Fat Tony, is 24 years old, 5'7" with blue eyes and short straight dark hair.
It happened in the men’s changing rooms, shortly before 5pm, where the victim was shot five times in the chest and once in the head. Emergency services were at the scene on Tuesday afternoon stabilising the injured man, who had one bullet wound in his head.
He was rushed to the Gregorio Marañón Hospital in a critical condition.
Witnesses say they heard between eight and ten shots at the Holiday Gym, on Madrid’s Plaza República Dominicana, which is one of a chain the company has in the city.
The Sergeant went to a Madrid gym on Tuesday and shot his ex boyfriend dead.
The Guardia Civil who killed his ex-boyfriend in a Madrid gym has himself died.
45 year old Sergeant Ángel Luis J.T died in the Gregorio Marañón Hospital from serious head injuries he suffered when he tried to commit suicide after the attack.
On Tuesday evening he had gone to the Holiday Gym in the Plaza de República Dominicana in the capital and killed his ex boyfriend, a 28 year old, Marcos H.H. who worked in the gym, by shooting him in the forehead.
Health and Civil Protección said the victim had suffered several shots, but it was the shot to the head which had proved fatal.
Two guns were found at the scene of the shooting, a revolver and a Beretta pistol, both of them belonging to the Guardia Civil sergeant who has now died.
The Civil Guard maritime force on patrol in the Strait of Gibraltar seized more than one ton of cannabis this week after boarding a fishing boat which was intercepted on the open sea off Almería province.
The two crew, who Europa Press reports are both from El Ejido, were arrested.
Monday’s swoop came after the Guardia’s ocean-going patrol boat, the Río Miño, spotted a semi-rigid boat travelling without lights some 20 miles off the coast of Almería, shortly after which a fishing boat was seen approaching it from the shore. The Río Miño then launched one of the two smaller boats it carries on board, which managed to intercept the fishing boat. The other vessel escaped.
Ninety nine bales of cannabis were seized.
It’s the Río Mió’s second success in the area in the past week. 1.1 tons of cannabis were seized in the early hours of Saturday from a pleasure boat which was crewed by a man resident in Marbella, Málaga province.
