Spanish police arrested 41 people and cracked an operation to launder up to US$336 million which may have links to the embattled Russian Yukos oil company, the Interior Ministry said.
The raids followed 10 months of investigation. Those arrested in Spain's southern Costa del Sol region included Spanish, French, Finnish, Russian and Ukrainian citizens. The ministry said the operation was Spain's biggest crackdown on money laundering ever.
Police also seized a ship, two small planes and 42 luxury cars, the ministry added Saturday.
The statement said that Spanish judicial authorities worked closely with the Russians on the case, dubbed "White Whale," which involved more than 300 police.
The ministry said police had been able to determine the possible destination for money stemming from a massive illegal siphoning of funds originating at the Russian oil firm Yukos, allegedly diverted to a Dutch company and then reinvested in a Spanish unit.
Police also found a connection between a group of lawyers in the Marbella area with other organized crime groups involved in drug and arms trafficking and prostitution.
Marbella and the Costa del Sol as a whole is a base for mobs dealing in everything from stolen cars to illegal weapons. In 2003, police broke up 53 criminal gangs who were involved in money laundering, drug and weapons trafficking.
Yukos denied reports that it might have been involved in money laundering in Spain.
Yukos spokesman Alexander Shadrin told Ekho Moskvy radio that such reports were "nonsense."
"The only place left to look is on Mars -- did we launder something there?" Ekho Moskvy quoted Shadrin as saying, in a sarcastic reference to the Russian government's campaign of accusations and tax claims against the beleaguered company.
According to the radio station, the Russian prosecutor general's office declined to comment on the reports, but said that it had not contacted Spanish authorities about the issue. Russian prosecutors could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday.
Yukos has been targeted by Russian authorities in a legal campaign widely seen as punishment by President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin for its founder and ex-CEO Mikhail Khodorkvosky's economic clout and political ambitions.
The company's biggest production unit was sold by the state in a disputed December auction to pay part of the US$28 billion authorities say Yukos owes in back taxes.
Khodorkovsky has been jailed since his October 2003 arrest, and is being tried on fraud and tax-evasion charges separate from the claims against the company.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
RSS