Agents from the Comprehensive District Police Station (CID) of the North Center of the Municipal Police of Madrid intercepted yesterday Wednesday in a routine alcohol and documentation check a VTC vehicle whose passenger had more than 2 million euros in bags in the trunk, reported a spokesperson for the Local Body.
The intervention took place at 5:45 p.m. at a checkpoint located on Mártires de Alcalá street, in the Conde Duque area. After checking the driver’s documentation and his VTC vehicle, the agents found a very nervous passenger in the back.
Thus, they asked for his documentation and searched him, finding 1,170 euros in cash. They then searched the trunk of the car and found 4 plastic bags belonging to him. Inside there were many bundles of 100, 50, 20 and 10 euro bills wrapped in plastic wrap. After subsequent counting, the sum of the total amounts to 2,066,220 euros.
The passenger, a 37-year-old Colombian resident in Barcelona, acknowledged that this money “was not for work” but did not give further explanations of its origin, for which he was detained accused of an alleged crime of money laundering.
The money was seized and transferred to the Central police station of the National Police for counting and subsequent judicial deposit. If no one claims it, as is usual in this type of findings, many related to drug trafficking, it will end up in the State’s coffers at the disposal of the court if required by the magistrate in charge of the case.
Asked by journalists this morning about this, the vice mayor and delegate of Security and Emergencies of Madrid, Inmaculada Sanz stated that this is an “undoubtedly” important police operation.
“When you inspect the vehicle you see that there is a very significant amount of money in different bags that at first they think is around a million euros. But then, finally, when you count all that money that was in, as I say , in vacuum-packed supermarket bags, it seems to take up the least amount of space and in the end it costs up to two million euros,” he said.
Sanz has indicated that in any case the operation is still ongoing in the sense that other proceedings will take place. “We hope that as a result of this thread we can see what is behind this situation. It is evident that it is not normal for there to be a transport of an amount of money such as two million euros,” he pointed out.
The councilor has also highlighted that the fact of having increased the number of municipal agents on the street “means that sometimes these types of controls have these results.” “We will see what happens but it is certainly a very relevant operation,” she reiterated.