Middle-aged man. He stood out little. Simple life without any kind of economic ostentation. He worked as a tax advisor. And he ran a management office on the Costa del Sol where he had freelancers and small local business owners as clients. What few knew was that his portfolio also included drug traffickers. Criminal organizations passed his number from one to another when they needed to launder money in Marbella or Estepona. And he managed to skillfully convert illegal income into legal assets.
“He was essential for many of these gangs,” says a police officer who knows him well. “He was like Rodri for the national team,” he compares. The officer speaks in the past tense because this unique consultant, of Spanish nationality, has been arrested during an operation that dismantled a Dutch drug trafficking gang based in Marbella. And it’s not his first time. His record already shows another arrest, made in 2024 during Operation Pampa. He is already in prison.
For the police working in Marbella, his name — which they prefer not to make public — is well known. He is one of those criminals already considered “historic” in the city. Everyone refers to him as “the financial architect of the Costa del Sol” because of his ability to transform drug trafficking profits into legal money. “He had long been linked to many criminal organizations, but it was not always possible to prove it,” police sources who know him well say, emphasizing that despite being awaiting trial for his first arrest, he continued doing the same work. He had no shortage of work.
“He was a personable person, easy to access and very knowledgeable,” the same sources say, highlighting how gangs came to him on recommendations from one another. The word of mouth of drug trafficking. “He never asked where the money came from, but he knew perfectly well its origin and that he had to move it under the table,” says a police officer who worked on his arrest. “He moved large amounts of cash,” adds another.
To get him behind bars, two parallel investigations were needed that had him as their common link. The first started in 2025. It was called Nesela and was carried out by the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (Udef) of the National Police. Their Belgian counterparts had reported that, after dismantling a criminal organization dedicated to drug trafficking in Operation Costa, they discovered that its leaders tried to hide part of their profits in Spain. Following the thread, they managed to identify the person who had done those tasks for the criminals, a manager who had already been arrested in 2024 during Operation Pampa.
They then verified that he had established a complex structure with shell companies to launder money. He created companies based in Dubai — whose opacity makes tracing the origin of capital difficult — and made loans between them that served to justify the origin of the money to banks. Thanks to this, he legally acquired properties worth four million euros. Homes that were later transferred between companies to end up — clean of all suspicion — in the hands of the son of the head of the criminal organization.
The second investigation was carried out in parallel, also from 2025, by agents of the Drug and Organized Crime Unit (Udyco) of the Costa del Sol. Named Diemel, it focused precisely on a 44-year-old man of Dutch nationality who lived on the Malaga coast. He allegedly organized, from there and together with his 22-year-old son, shipments of large quantities of cocaine hidden in ship containers through various ports in Belgium.
Read more Egg freezing breaks into elite athletes: «There are not enough studies on how it affects»
“They lived very comfortably in luxury homes in Marbella,” police sources say, recounting that both directed operations through encrypted phones. And since they did not have much knowledge of the Spanish legislative field, they decided to go to a tax advisor to help them launder the profits. They asked for a recommendation and ended up in Malaga at the trusted management office of the narcos.
There they were attended by the same financial architect monitored by the money laundering section. “He was the one who supervised the receipt of funds, advised them on how to create companies, and proposed alternatives so that banking entities would never suspect the origin of the money,” explains an investigator.
Following the money trail
At the beginning of summer, the police verified that the son and his father — declared a high-value target by Europol because their activity represents a great “risk of serious organized crime for two or more states,” according to police sources — were preparing the shipment of a ton of cocaine. By then both were awaiting sentencing for their previous arrest and, faced with the possibility that they might flee with the money to Dubai to avoid extradition, the investigators decided to anticipate and arrest them.
It was on June 29. And when entering his house in Marbella, the father had put one of his mobiles in the microwave to fry it and thus destroy evidence. His son was arrested on Dutch soil along with two other members of the organization. And the financial architect on the Costa del Sol joined them all. In the eight searches carried out between Malaga (5) and the Netherlands (3), five firearms, 40 phones, jewelry valued at 170,000 euros, three high-end vehicles, and a luxury watch were seized. Properties valued at four million euros were blocked. Investigations remain open and new arrests are not ruled out, according to police sources.
“This happens many times: the leaders of criminal gangs live lavishly on the Costa del Sol and, from there, organize drug shipments to third countries. Many think no one will bother them because the merchandise is far away,” the investigators say. They emphasize that, above all, this operation is exemplary because it summarizes the increasingly close collaboration between Udyco and Udef police groups, who not only go after the names of drug traffickers and their merchandise but also their fortunes.
“Taking away their drugs is not enough, there is a lot. What really hurts is the money, going after their structures and laundering networks so they cannot enjoy anything when, sooner or later, they are released,” the police say. Both father and son were sent to prison for this case, although in the meantime they were also sentenced to 11 years in prison for their previous arrest in the Netherlands. The financial architect is also already behind bars, now awaiting two trials.
