2024 Cocaine Bust in Spain Leads All the Way to Wall Street, Dubai
July 14th, 2026Via: ThePrint:
It was supposed to be a cargo of bananas from Latin America. What Spanish police found on the ship in the Mediterranean port of Algeciras instead were 13 tons of cocaine.
The drug bust in the fall of 2024 became the biggest in Spain’s history at the time. The ensuing investigation has now revealed what authorities allege was a financial network used to launder money running all the way to the founders of a special-purpose acquisition company in Newport Beach, California, that raised $200 million from investors just last year.
The case has all the ingredients of a movie: a drug kingpin, a corrupt senior police officer with millions in cash reportedly stashed in his walls, and links to Spanish royalty. Yet the allegations are also striking in how they link financiers with Wall Street connections, an Irish fintech trading crypto assets, luxury Dubai real estate and multiple offshore lenders.
