Sito Miñanco and Puigdemont’s lawyer prosecuted for laundering drug trafficking

Madrid, Dec 18 (EFE) .- The judge has prosecuted José Ramón Prado Bugallo, known as “Sito Miñanco”, for trying to introduce almost four tons of cocaine into Spain within the framework of an alleged criminal network and for an alleged crime of money laundering for which he also proposes to try Gonzalo Boye, Carles Puigdemont’s lawyer.

In this case, where another 44 people and 5 merchants have been processed, an alleged criminal network led by the historic Galician drug trafficker, who was arrested in February 2018 while enjoying a semi-freedom regime, has been investigated.

Among the defendants is the lawyer Gonzalo Boye, to whom, along with two other lawyers, the magistrate of the National Court María Tardón attributes an alleged crime of money laundering within a criminal organization, originating from drug trafficking, in competition with another continued of falsification in official document.

The resolution imposes different bonds to cover the eventual financial responsibilities that may arise from the events, and which amount to 131.5 million euros in the case of Sito Miñanco and 25 others prosecuted for crimes against public health of substances that cause serious damage. to health.

Apart from this crime, Tardón attributes to those investigated, depending on the case, money laundering; falsification of official document or illegal possession of weapons.

For two crimes of attempted homicide, Manuel Pedro González, a professional shooter, has been prosecuted, along with another for an attack on law enforcement officers and injuries, since when he was going to be arrested, on February 5, 2018, he shot nine times at the Civil Guard agents, wounding two of them and, according to the magistrate’s order, “it only ceased in its action when the ammunition of the weapon with which it was shooting ran out.

The investigation dates back to 2016, when Sito Miñanco was serving a 16-year prison sentence in Algeciras for a crime against public health and enjoyed the third degree, which allowed him to work.

According to the judge, its activity continued to be the introduction and distribution of drugs in the country and it maintained both contact with South American suppliers and the infrastructure, “a well-nourished group of individuals”, with experience and willing to participate in these operations, “performing almost reverential any activity”.

He was, according to the thesis of the magistrate, who directed the criminal network, with people of his highest confidence such as Enrique García Arango and Juan Antonio Fernández, also convicted of drug trafficking.

As a result of this investigation, two operations have been identified with which they intended to introduce huge amounts of cocaine into Spain: those corresponding to the intervention of the ship Thoran, approached in 2017 when it was transporting 3.3 tons of cocaine and the apprehension, in November of that year , from a container of cocaine in the Netherlands that concealed 615 kilos of the same substance.

But apart from these, according to the judge, Prado Bugallo maintained the constant planning and execution of other drug introduction, distribution and sale operations until he was arrested.

In her 72-page order, the magistrate explains the corporate structure attributed to Sito Miñanco, with properties in the name of third parties where “the only real and effective owner” was him.

In addition to its mercantile, the organization used third-party companies that provided its services, although there was also a third way to hide the benefits of the drug: through the transports carried out by the members of the clan themselves or by others coordinated by one of those prosecuted to hide the profits in Colombia through human emails.

The participation of the lawyers processed in the events – Gonzalo Boye, Jesús Morán and Alejandro Guerra – would focus on the alleged money laundering, according to the order, which refers to one of the operations carried out by the emails that Sito Miñanco used to send the money to Colombia and that it was intercepted by the Police.

On February 6, 2017, several of those investigated were arrested at the Barajas airport when they were transporting 889,620 euros hidden in the bottom of their luggage.

In the strategy to access the seized money, the lawyers, according to the judge, drew up a series of documents to simulate fictitious purchase and sale operations “in order to recover the seized money and hide that it ultimately came from drug trafficking.”

The order recalls that for these events, in October 2017 the General Secretariat of the Treasury imposed on González Rubio and each of the other investigated a fine for a serious infraction typified in the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering.

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