Civil Guard Dismantle Billion Dollar Chinese Mafia Money Laundering
The Spanish Civil Guard have dismantled a Chinese criminal organization that authorities believe could have handled some 2 billion Euros worth of transactions in fraudulent financial transactions resulting in laundered profits of more than €105 million.
The operation, entitled Caisheng, was ordered by Special Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime and the Central Investigating Court in Madrid, in order to obtain evidence of alleged tax crimes and money laundering.
Officers of the Civil Guard’s Central Operative Unit (UCO) raided 29 premises including homes, tax consultancies, warehouses and shops, most of them in the Usera district of Madrid leading to the detention of 15 people and a further investigation into 15 others has now been started.
The Usera district has long been the centre of the Chinese community in Madrid, which numbers an estimated officially resident people.
The authorities have frozen 24 bank accounts associated with the companies identified in the operation.
The investigation which began in 2018 includes the acquisition of luxury items for Chinese citizens residing in Spain, through a network of transactions totalling more than 2 billion Euros that ended up in banks in mainland China.
it is believed that the network worked on various levels, depending the level of trust between the parties, using a so-called “compensation” method, whereby cash was delivered by returning tourists from Spain to China, where it was collected by gang members.
