The Basque businessman Alejandro Hamlyn, who appears in the recording of a meeting with the former socialist member Leire Díez in which she asked him for compromising information about officers of the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard while implying supposed favors from the Prosecutor’s Office in exchange, was arrested this Monday by the police in the city-emirate of Dubai, in the Persian Gulf, according to The Objective and confirmed by EL PAÍS from police sources. The arrest comes in response to a request from Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization, which includes 196 countries) after the National Court issued a search and arrest warrant against him following the businessman’s failure to appear in court in June 2025.
In this case, Hamlyn is accused of leading a scheme around his oil company Hafesa Energía, through which he allegedly committed a fraud of more than 154 million euros by not paying VAT on the marketing of hydrocarbons. The Prosecutor’s Office was seeking 89 years in prison for him for crimes of money laundering, leading a criminal organization, and against the Public Treasury. The businessman then argued that he did not appear at the hearing because the Dubai authorities would not let him leave the country due to an alleged debt of 7,000 euros. Now, after his arrest, the process for his extradition to Spain begins, which, according to police sources, could take “a few months.”
Hamlyn and his arrest have media impact, not so much because of the millionaire fraud case ―in which he had been prosecuted since 2021 with little press coverage― but because on May 26, the day his trial was precisely starting in the National Court, the first audios of the meeting were published in which he talks with the former socialist member, the businessman Javier Pérez Dolset, and the lawyer Jacobo Teijelo, all of them charged in the Leire Díez case being investigated by Judge Santiago Pedraz. In that conversation, Díez is heard asking the businessman for compromising information about the Anti-Corruption prosecutor José Grinda and Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas, the top official of the UCO department that handles investigations affecting the PSOE, the Government, and Pedro Sánchez’s circle. When the video of that meeting was released, Hamlyn said in an interview that he felt used “as a political weapon.” “When I refused to collaborate in their setup against the Civil Guard, they reactivated the criminal process against me,” he claimed.
Read more Fourteen injured in the only night run of the San Sebastián de los Reyes festivities
The place of arrest, Dubai, has become a recurring refuge for fugitives. In fact, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has classified it in recent years as a paradise for international criminals, including major drug lords. The unmeasured luxury of this city-state allowed all of them to spend their large profits without shame, sheltered by the supposed impunity they feel due to the great difficulties that the justice systems of other countries have in obtaining cooperation from Dubai authorities, even though the United Arab Emirates, the country it is part of, belongs to Interpol, as do most Arab states. However, in recent years, Dubai has begun to facilitate the arrest of some fugitives wanted by other countries who took refuge in its territory.
