The sunny southern stretch of beaches branded "the Coast of Crime" is a hedonist's paradise. It is the summer residence of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, and place where jet setters and "beautiful people" arrive by the scores, its harbors brim with yachts and buckets of cash exchange hands.
It has also been an open secret that in the regional capital of Marbella much of that money comes from the seedy-side of life, linked to speculating in real estate, or dirtier crimes, such as extortion, contract murders, car-thefts, arms and drugs trafficking and prostitution. It is suspected that much of those ill-gotten gains were sent to offshore accounts. Once laundered, funds then entered back into the Spanish real estate market, as characterized by property promotions changing hands multiple times before the first habitant opened the door. In other words, real estate promotions were sold, and resold, various times - and each time the price rising - without a "physical" owner ever taking possession of the keys.
As a sign of the international crime element an Interpol report notes: "There is an exceptionally large number of Estonian and Russian professional criminals carrying out, besides a large scale hashish and cocaine trafficking, remarkable sex business in the numerous hotels and restaurants of Costa del Sol." Meanwhile, according to Online Security, "Italian crime groups' longtime investments in real estate and entertainment enterprises--particularly gambling casinos--in Germany, France, Monaco, Spain's Costa del Sol, and the Caribbean are conduits for money laundering."
Still, what was not known – or at least officially recognized – was on how large a scale international organized crime was using this playground for the rich and famous as Europe’s money laundering capital.
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