It is in this last role as “bankers” for the ill-gotten gains of international, organised crime that Spain has acquired a fairly dubious reputation.

The presence of organised crime in Spain, as well in many other European countries, is hardly a recent phenomenon. Gangs of swindlers, bandits and organised smugglers, among others, have operated, to one degree or another, throughout history. Traditionally, there was always a strong connection between Spanish smugglers and those of the neighbouring French and Portuguese border areas, who shared a more or less common lifestyle.

After the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent Second World War, the deteriorating socio-economic climate in Spain, the country’s international isolation and the scarcity of many consumer goods in the Spanish market, led to a fairly arbitrary array of rationing by the government. This, in turn, played into the hands of an existing structure of domestic organised crime: the so-called estraperlo. This included a wide range of activities related to the black market for primary goods, illicit service payments, extortion, threats and racketeering. It was played against the background of widespread corruption and of the downright arrogance of the winners in the recent Civil War (1936-39) – who, together with industrialists and shopkeepers, were the principal actors in this arena. The problem decreased as rationing came to an end, and the fat cat businessmen of the illicit trade became respectable directors in large construction firms and in other spheres of the service and banking sector.

It was not until the early 1970s that the large international crime cartels began to establish themselves in a major way in Spain, and then mainly, and covertly, in the tourist area of the Costa del Sol, in Southern Spain. Their main activity was laundering the money generated in businesses such as drug trafficking, arm trafficking, extortion and kidnapping. After setting up operational bases and incorporating new and powerful criminal organisations, they have achieved a division of labour so perfect that they have been able to operate virtually unnoticed by the majority of the general public. For instance, the only violent incidents in Spain have been mainly a consequence of internal power conflicts in the organisation headquarters. International criminal organisations in Spain have generally tried to avoid the more ostentatious displays of violence they might find appropriate in other parts of the world, so as to keep Spain a secure base for money-laundering – an activity for which they consider it especially suitable – and as a haven when times become tough in their motherland. According to official figures, annually about four billions US dollars are laundered in Spain.

Due to its proximity to northern Africa, its close cultural and communications links with South America, and the historical existence of organized tobacco smuggling activity in the past, Spain has become one of the major entry points into Europe for drugs.

Latin American drug dealers had their eyes on Spain since the late 1970s, principally to escape the pressure increasingly exerted on them by the United States within their respective countries. In the mid 1980s, many Colombian drug lords had to flee their home country because of the pressure being put on them for the first time in their history. Two of these drug barons, Jorge Luis Ochoa and Gilberto Rodríguez-Orejuela, ended up in Spain, where they had already established some friendships and had strong economic interests, aided by the open relationship between Spain and her ex-colonies; Carlos Lehder, another drug lord, had already been in Spain for some time.

The Colombians felt that Spain was a safe haven in which to set up camp far from the long arm of the American DEA, even though the latter, ironically, had just opened its first delegation in Spain. An additional plus was that the recently elected socialist government in Spain was reluctant to collaborate with the North Americans. Since they thought that their stay would be a long-term one, the Colombians began to organise new markets for cocaine in Spain. However, Ochoa and Rodríguez-Orejuela were both arrested and extradited to Colombia in 1986. In the meantime, they set about making good Spanish contacts in the prison where they were being held. In Colombia they were shortly set free and renewed their contacts in order to set into motion the importation of cocaine into Europe. In 1989, the DEA already had proof that the Iberian peninsula was the main point of entry of cocaine in Europe. It was also the principal recipient of money laundering.

The new kids on the block of organised crime are the so-called “Russian Mafias” from the former Soviet Union. These groups proliferated during the collapse of the former Soviet superpower and began arriving in Spain during the 1990s. They include Ukrainians, Belarusians, Georgians, and Chechnians as well as others from other former Soviet satellites, such as Poles, Serbs and Bulgarians. Since 1994, these groups, mixed with the nouveau riches of the budding Russian market economy, have been establishing themselves primarily in three areas: the Costa del Sol in Malaga province (especially in the tourist resorts of Marbella and Estepona); parts of Valencia (particularly Torrevieja and Benidorm); and the Catalonian coast. In 1993 the Spanish Consulate in Moscow granted 44,584 visas and in 1994 that number almost doubled. Subsequently, the Spanish government has followed a stricter policy on the granting of visas to citizens of the former Soviet republics. This, however, has not prevented the Russian mafias from controlling the issue of both genuine and counterfeit visas in their own country.

All signs point to the existence of large-scale money-laundering operations run by Russian mafias in Spain, mainly in investments in real estate and tourism. After a few money-laundering operations in parts of the Eastern Mediterranean and in Switzerland, it seems that these groups have opted for Spain as the longer-term base instead. It is supposed that these mafias have invested millions of Euros in the acquisition of tourist apartments and bungalows in swish urban developments as well as in the installation of restaurants and other services related to tourism.

A report by the Spanish secret services in March 1995, revealed that organised groups from the former Soviet Union were interested in acquiring a small bank in order to penetrate the Spanish financial sector. Once they had introduced themselves into the Russian financial system through the purchase of banking institutions and the creation of companies that they could use to launder money, the next step was to exp