The Audiencia Nacional has ordered the surrender to the United Kingdom of a man wanted by the British justice system for drug trafficking, arrested in Ibiza after being identified through a criminal communications network by having a collaborator pay his daughter’s school fees.
The man, a British national with previous convictions, was arrested in Sant Josep last August pursuant to an international search warrant for cocaine trafficking, and was remanded in custody, where he has remained ever since.
The man is accused of being involved in the importation of cocaine into the UK between March and June 2020, as well as laundering drug money. According to the investigation, the man is alleged to have used an encrypted messaging platform widespread among criminal networks.
From these messages it appears that the man had prepared documentation and provided money to smuggle large quantities of cocaine hidden in fish through a front company. The intercepted messages would reveal a position of responsibility within a criminal organization.
The British authorities referred to the Spanish courts significant evidence identifying this citizen as the user behind the incriminating messages. In addition to images and messages consistent with the citizen’s movements, the main evidence has been a personal transaction of his daughter’s school tuition.
Apparently, the man had made arrangements with a collaborator of that communications network so that the latter would pay the school fees, thus laundering money owed to him.
The man has another criminal case pending in Ibiza for breach of sentence and assault against authority.
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