Officers from the National Police arrested a fugitive of Belgian nationality at Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández airport – a large-scale cocaine trafficker and wanted for money laundering and membership in a criminal organisation – when he was preparing to take a flight to Bristol in the UK.
Post Brexit checks mean that documents of passengers travelling to the UK from Europe have to be examined, and officers checked the documentation of this Belgian citizen who intended to take a flight to the United Kingdom.
In these checks, they detected that this man had a European Arrest Warrant for Extradition in force by the Belgian authorities for these crimes related to narcotics.
After being taken to the police station at the airport, the agents confirmed without any doubt his identity and verified that this man had indeed been wanted since January 2023 by the Belgian authorities as he was related to a criminal organisation that since In October 2020, a large amount of cocaine from South America had been introduced into Belgium.
In addition, the organisation laundered the money obtained from the sale of drugs. The detainee is identified as being in charge of part of the logistics of the criminal organisation. For these crimes, the detainee could face a maximum sentence of up to 15 years in prison in Belgium.
The detainee, 65 years old and of Belgian nationality, was transferred to Madrid and placed at the disposal of the Central Investigative Court of the National Court, the judicial body in charge of carrying out the procedures for his subsequent extradition.
