The kingpin, royal and corrupt policeman at centre of Spain’s drugs crisis
- - The kingpin, royal and corrupt policeman at centre of Spain’s drugs crisis
James BadcockFebruary 15, 2026 at 3:00 AM
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Police had a breakthrough in the case in 2024 when cocaine concealed in crates of bananas was seized in southern Spain - Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty
For a man nicknamed “Bugatti”, Ignacio Torán was somewhat secretive about the scale of his vast wealth.
A mansion in Dubai, chalets in Ibiza, gold bars, supercars and designer watches are not the typical hallmarks of a man living in the shadows.
But Torán’s friends in high places are accused of helping the kingpin run a sprawling international drug-trafficking operation without drawing too much attention.
That was until Feb 6, when Spanish police arrested him for the fifth and, they hope, final time.
Investigators say Torán is at the centre of the vast drug network that thrived thanks to his relationship with a corrupt police chief and a distant cousin to the exiled former king of Spain.
It was only recently that police discovered his alleged money laundering operation, which uncovered properties in the Middle East, Colombia and Spain along with shell companies in Panama and the US state of Delaware.
Despite multiple previous arrests going back to the 1990s, he had spent very little time behind bars.
A large part of Torán’s success was allegedly due to his friendship with Óscar Sánchez, the head of Spain’s economic crimes police unit, who was arrested in November 2024.
A meeting between Ignacio Torán, left, and Óscar Sánchez was captured by police when they began investigating the case
Sánchez, now in his early 50s, rose through the ranks of the police force’s organised crime and drug unit before his 2020 transfer to the economic crimes section.
Known as “the anodyne one”, none of his colleagues suspected he might be using his position to conspire with the underworld rather than take it down.
Their alleged collusion shines a light on the scourge of Spanish police corruption which is hampering efforts to close off Europe’s biggest gateway for cocaine, much of it ending up on Britain’s streets.
Torán and Sánchez allegedly worked together for five years importing 27 tons of cocaine worth more than €2bn (£1.7bn) in 39 shipping containers that went completely undetected, according to a report by the Spanish police’s internal affairs unit.
Investigators said it appeared Sánchez passed off Torán as his informant, listing him in the police database of collaborators, meaning that if any other officer accessed his file he would receive an alert.
The police chief is also accused of abusing his access to official databases to protect Torán’s drug shipments from Colombia and Ecuador.
1502 How drugs are brought into Spain
He allegedly inputted the serial numbers of shipping containers into the police computer system to see if they were being tracked by fellow detectives.
In a police report seen by the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, Torán told one of his gang members that he was in business with someone on the inside he called “the customs officer”.
He said they each took 40 per cent of the profits from the cocaine shipments, with 20 per cent for the rest of the crew, the report claimed.
In 2023 Sánchez started being watched by police colleagues after he appeared to start stashing away millions accrued from his alleged criminality.
Sánchez is accused of being paid €32m (£27.8m) by Torán before their alleged collaboration unravelled.
Óscar Sánchez, pictured as a young officer, allegedly bricked up cash behind the walls of his home
After his arrest, investigators found close to €20m (£17.4m) in Sánchez’s home, much of which had been bricked behind walls.
Police had a breakthrough in the case in October 2024 when a container from Ecuador with 14 tons of cocaine concealed in crates of bananas arrived at the port of Algeciras in southern Spain.
This time, drug unit investigators had deliberately not registered the container’s serial number in the police IT system.
According to the internal affairs report, Sánchez betrayed himself by reacting furiously to the decision to search the load without being informed.
Torán was detained in February 2025, but his lawyers obtained his release from custody two months later on a legal technicality, although he was obliged to relinquish his passport and report regularly to a police station.
Officers continue to attempt to piece together how such vast sums of money were laundered around the world and have established links to overseas properties, central African banks, digital wallets and cryptocurrency.
Francisco Joaquín de Borbón von Hardengberg, a 47-year-old aristocrat based in Marbella, was also arrested earlier this month.
Francisco Joaquín de Borbón von Hardengberg was arrested on suspicion of money laundering - Jose Ignacio Viseras/GTRES/Shutterstock
The distant cousin of the Juan Carlos I was held on suspicion of being involved in money laundering for the Torán network, before being released on €50,000 (£43,470) bail.
Europe’s ever-increasing appetite for cocaine has led to a modernisation of traffickers’ smuggling techniques.
Many shipments arrive by sea from Central and South America and Africa.
In 2025, 105 people were arrested after using high-speed launches aided by drones to transport cocaine from mother ships in the Atlantic into southern Spain.
Huge shipments of cocaine have been seized during the investigation by Spanish police
Two years earlier, Spanish police made the first ever seizure of a livestock ship trafficking cocaine in European waters.
Officers discovered 4.5 tons of cocaine, with a value of about €105m (£91,287), hidden in packages in cattle-food silos.
South American traffickers have developed submarines to cross the Atlantic and Europol has warned that autonomous semi-submersibles, equipped with antennas and a modem, are probably already capable of making the voyage without a crew on board.
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Source: “AOL Breaking”
