The Police places the origin of the dismantling of 'Los Miami' in the death of 'Cata', the goalkeeper of 'Heaven'

They took "infinite security measures" going so far as to create their own language of nicknames so as not to be identified

MADRID, 9 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

One of the chief inspectors who was in charge of the investigations into the criminal organization 'Los Miami' recalled before the National High Court that they found this complex plot of drug trafficking and money laundering when investigating in January 2009 the murder of Catalin Stefan 'Cata', the doorman of the nightclub 'Heaven', who died at the hands of Carlos Monge, known as 'El Cuchillos'.

"We saw that there was drug trafficking through the conversations, and we reached small distribution and drug transactions," the agent recalled, later explaining that when the court investigating the doorman's death asked them if they had found the cell phone of the crime - they were investigating a presumed settling of accounts -, they answered no but they agreed to continue investigating money laundering and related crimes since then, and they placed one of the leaders of the organization, Laurentino, at the center of their investigations. Sanchez, aka 'Lauro'.

In this way, since 2009 they began to spin names thanks to surveillance and telephone interventions, and they found the rest of the defendants, among whom were both the Juarez Smith brothers and Ana María Cameno --'the queen of coca' -- or the brothers López Tardón, Álvaro and Artemio.

It should be remembered that the indictment of the National Court Prosecutor's Office makes it explicit that the organization was "extremely complex, powerful, labyrinthine, intertwined, highly diversified and meticulously planned", that it was also "permanent and structured", that it had projection international and that it was subdivided "into no less than four large sectors or ramifications".

On the morning of this Thursday, up to four agents have declared, and several of them have coincided in explaining that since the plot branched out through various areas of the territory, different police and Civil Guard groups intervened, although, when the investigations coincided , were included in the instruction of the court that started with the first investigations.

The anti-drug prosecutor Manuel Pérez Veiga has focused during the different statements on the complexity of the follow-ups, and the agents have agreed that 'Los Miami' had created their own language of nicknames to avoid being identified and used the mobile terminals of bidirectional way, that is to say that each person used a specific phone to send SMS to a specific person and never to two different ones.

To this they have added that the contacts between the heads of the different branches into which the organization was divided always took place on the same day at the same time, for example at the Starbucks on Padre Damián street. And that they carried out counter-surveillance and took "infinite security measures."

The first of the inspectors who has testified in the Chamber has explained that one of the milestones of the investigation that allowed them to square or make a sketch of the organization was the loss of up to two ships with drugs by 'Lauro'. There he intensifies contacts and they can connect Cameno and the Juárez Smith: "Each one with a very well structured role."

The Public Prosecutor's Office has also asked this inspector about the investigation that was being carried out in parallel in a court in Colmenar about "the queen of coca" by an illegal drug manufacturing laboratory that was being set up in the town of Villanueva de Perales, in the mountains of Madrid. The agent has explained that in principle that line was not connected with his investigation, but when they began to share data they saw that messages coincided and they began to coordinate.

In fact, he recalled that the work of the police group that was pending the laboratory was vital when deciding when what has come to be called 'exploitation' of the investigation occurs, the moment in which the arrests and entries and records.

Thus, the inspector has recalled that this group intercepts a series of communications and collects evidence that makes them think that there would already be a "brutal" amount of cocaine in the laboratory and therefore they decide to enter. It was 2011, and he has pointed out that even then they had located locations where 'Los Miami' kept the drug, who were the ones who participated in the network and to their degree, and therefore the conclusion was reached that "the opportunity for the cooks to cook" because they could have distributed large amounts of drugs. "A macro-circulation was carried out and a hundred-odd people were arrested," he recalled.

Another of the chief inspectors who testified this Thursday explained that his group entered the investigation of 'Los Miami' late and that they focused on drug trafficking. In addition to recounting the 'modus operandi' of the band to contact each other, he has described at one point what was the role and attitude of the López Tardón brothers in the network, taking into account that they were the leaders of the 'branch' main one from which the rest hung.

Thus, he has indicated that throughout the investigation they concluded that Álvaro López Tardón, who is serving a 150-year sentence in the US for these same acts, only acted in the field of drug trafficking abroad, because when he was in Spain "he was always partying, consuming, on vacation in Ibiza and wasting money all over the place".

Regarding the other brother, Artemio, who is the one who is being tried and who reached a partial agreement with the Prosecutor's Office last Tuesday, acknowledging the crime of money laundering but not drug trafficking, he explained that he was the one who was acting in Spain and "He handled everything related to money."