Elconfidencial.com reports that on 26 June 2018, an extensive police operation was carried out in the cities of Barcelona, Valencia, and Madrid where more than a thousand agents of the National Police of Spain and the Regional Police of Catalonia (Mossos d’Esquadra) intervened jointly with Interpol and Europol agents.

As reported by the Prosecutor’s Office of Spain, the operation framed within the judicial investigation of the Court of Instruction No. 2 of Terrassa and coordinated by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, had the objective to dismantle the organized crime of the Armenian mafia.

The investigation focuses on 13 crimes, such as money laundering, match fixing, drugs trafficking, and illegal possession of weapons, but also the crimes of extortion, threats, coercion, and falsification of official and mercantile documents.

142 people were arrested and the judge has authorized 73 proceedings of entry and registration, in addition to the blocking of current accounts and different properties. He has also issued five international arrest warrants.

The investigators believe that the people detained are related to the Georgian network that was dismantled at the end of 2017 and has ties in the United States, France, Belgium, Italy, and Lithuania. The Armenian criminal organization is considered to be the structure that had gained more strength after the disclosure of the Georgian plot in Spain.

The investigators have discovered that there are thieves in law of Armenian origin in Spain. A thief in law is a person who occupies a higher position in the ranks of an organized crime structure. To be precise, six of them were arrested in this operation.

According to a statement issued by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, the detainees had controlled and supervised criminal activities hitherto unknown to the police. Their ramifications extend to various countries of the European Union.

Police sources admitted that this network had managed to become one of the biggest nightmares for Spanish security. It had worked like a spider web, so everyone was connected and yet functioned independently.

The structure consisted of cells that had worked in an isolated manner and converged all the money gained in their actions in a common box called “Obschak” and managed by the chief thief in law.

Prepared by José Nicolas Dominguez Mendoza, Iravaban.net Correspondent