Guanxi Operation: A torn bill as a signal to move millions of euros in black money

The individual leaves a warehouse at the Cobo Calleja industrial estate, in Fuenlabrada (Madrid), with a plastic bag in his hand. He walks to a gray car parked next to her, opens the door, and places her in the driver’s seat. Next to the vehicle there is a second man who appears to be looking at a mobile phone and who is the one who told him to leave it there. Only a few seconds have passed when a third individual approaches them and hands a small paper to the second individual, who appears to compare it with something he has in his hand. Moments later he gives the go-ahead for the man who had put the bag in the car to take it out and hand it to the man who has just arrived. After receiving it, he walks away.

The scene, captured in the video that accompanies this information, was captured by agents of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard during Operation Guanxi, which led to the arrest of 13 people and made it possible to dismantle an alleged plot. of money laundering that functioned as a clandestine bank to take an average of three million euros per week from Spain to China. It was not the only similar sequence they recorded. Throughout the more than two years that the investigation lasted, the scene was repeated numerous times. What the members of the armed institute were recording with their cameras was the delivery of significant amounts of black money in broad daylight using a control system as traditional as cash: a torn bill as a signal, what is known as token (code or signal, in English).

Operation Guanxi began at the end of 2021, after a routine check was intercepted in Tarancón (Cuenca) by a citizen of Chinese origin who was transporting a significant amount of cash in his car, the origin of which he could not clarify. The investigations initiated from that moment on revealed that behind these funds there was a complex organization that functioned as a bank parallel to the legal circuit that was structured into several groups with differentiated functions and with wide margins of autonomy between them. One of these groups was in charge of weekly collecting the cash that several Chinese businessmen established in the Fuenlabrada industrial estate generated with the supposed irregular sale of counterfeit products or that had not been declared when they entered Spain.

Bundles of banknotes seized by the Civil Guard in a warehouse at the Cobo Calleja industrial estate, in Fuenlabrada, during Operation Guanxi.Civil Guard

The individual who appears in the first scene of the video taking the bag of money allegedly belonged to him. To be identified by the members of the plot as the person in charge of collecting the money, he had as token physical half of a bill, the other part of which was held by those who had to deliver it. Only when the latter verified that the serial number of both halves or even the signature that they sometimes put on the bill to reinforce the guarantees matched, did they give him the money. “It is an authentication protocol that is as simple as it is effective,” sources close to the investigation highlight. In fact, the recorded images reveal that the person who collected the money did not stop to count it. The trust between the different groups in the plot was total.

Once they had the bills in their possession, this group took them to “daycare centers”—as places where material or money is illegally stored is known in slang—where they were packaged and, a short time later, quickly sent through different routes outside the country. from Spain, mainly to China, in items ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 euros, although on one occasion one of more than half a million was detected, according to sources close to the investigation. A third group was in charge of this, made up mainly of citizens of Chinese origin, but also of Ukrainian nationality. To do this, the network used two “extraction channels,” in police jargon. One was on land, for which the money was hidden in the trucks in which the businessmen allegedly involved transported bazaar products to other European countries for sale. A transport company based in Poland and with connections to Hungary played a key role in this operation. This was the channel through which the network managed to make two million euros a week.

What affects the most is what happens closest. So you don’t miss anything, subscribe.

The other was the air route, through what is known as mules, people who hid the money in their luggage and left by plane for China. Last Monday, the Civil Guard located two suitcases in an apartment in the Madrid neighborhood of Carabanchel, already loaded with money and ready for a member of the plot to travel with them to the Asian country. Through this channel they sent one million euros a week out of Spain, according to researchers’ estimates.

During the two years of the investigation, the Civil Guard seized more than five million euros in cash in different phases both in Spain and in other countries. Added to that amount are the more than 1.7 million euros located last Monday during the 40 searches carried out by the Civil Guard in warehouses and homes. In most of them, the agents located amounts ranging from 40,000 to 60,000, although in one of the places close to 300,000 euros were seized, according to sources close to the investigation. In the video recorded by the agents, it is observed how the bills in bundles were hidden in safes, but also in drawers, bags or a simple camouflaged shoe box among other similar ones.