Born in the Netherlands and with only 24 years, he had been able to scam criminal organizations and take a fortune valued then at 17 million euros in cryptocurrencies. After his arrest, on September 16 of last year, the National Police kept those digital portfolios and their keys in an envelope that was in judicial custody. The surprise was that, three months later, when from the Office of Recovery and Management of Assets (Orga) they went to monetize the assets, the purses were empty. Someone had stayed with the money. An investigation has revealed that the person in charge has been a judicial secretary of the Court of Marbella, in Malaga, who has been arrested. After being separated from its functions, it has been accused of the alleged crimes of embezzlement committed by public official and infidelity in the custody of public document.
operation Geld was a success for the National Police Cybercrime Unit because they managed to find the Dutch kid, which resided in Marbella and which they considered “cybers to the service of the mafias”, according to sources of the investigation. It was a complex operation that took place for six months, also, by the amount of recovered cryptocurrencies: it meant the greatest seizure ever achieved in Spain. Digital assets – proceeds to scam to all types of people, also drug traffickers – initially had a value of 13 million, but when the arrest occurred they had already increased to 17 million.
The recovered portfolios, next to their keys, were the most sensitive element of all police work: one without the other was useless and, together, they allowed to recover a significant amount of money. That is why the passwords were kept in a closed and sealed envelope that was in judicial custody for three months and then sent to a armored chamber in Madrid. Access to the material was practically impossible and was very guarded because the investigators already warned that it could be a caramel for criminals. “Today is killed for 30,000 or 50,000 euros. Imagine what can be done for so many millions of euros,” said one of the police who had participated in the operation.
An official as a suspicious
Somehow, he succeeded. Because when in January of this year the Orga team went to change those assets in euros by court order, digital portfolios were practically empty. Someone had taken the money during the time that the seized material had remained in custody. To know who then started an investigation in which, the first thing that was done, was to analyze the envelope containing the keys. No different footprints were found than those of people who, legitimately, had been able to access it as part of their work.
They were then the main suspects, until the investigators mainly pointed to a judicial secretary for two reasons. On the one hand, because the official was defined as “cryptoinversor” and had recently bought a cryptocurrency wallet to save his private passwords. And, on the other, because the employee – who was making a substitution – had delayed the arrival of the envelope to Madrid to gain time and perpetrate the theft. In fact, the National Police believes that he did it when the keys were already in Madrid in the hands of the Office of Recovery and Management of Assets with the idea that there were more possible involved and could leave the police investigations.
He did not get it, because with the information obtained the agents decided to simultaneously register three locations where they believed that man could have hidden the keys to digital portfolios with all the money. They were located under the frame of a door, in a paper ball where the offender had signed up twelve words that, as could be verified later, gave access to digital wallets where stolen cryptocurrencies were found that, again, have returned to judicial custody.
The Judicial Secretary was part of the Labor Exchange in which law graduates could aspire to perform these tasks in judicial bodies. He was called to replace the lawyer of the Administration of Justice of the Court of Instruction number 1 of Marbella who was carrying out a service commission in Madrid. He developed his work in Court number 1 in the period between the month of October of the year 2023 and all the year 2024 until the reinstatement of the lawyer. “It was the first time that he exercised these functions in a judicial body, although he did work as an administrative manager,” judicial sources explain.
On April 9, the Guard Court of Malaga took a statement and, after providing his testimony, agreed to his provisional freedom with the precautionary measure of suspension of his duties in the judicial body and accused of the alleged commission of a crime of embezzlement committed by public official and infidelity in the custody of a public document. The Court has also raised a petition to the Ministry of Justice so that the investigated is definitely expelled or ceased from the Labor Exchange of substitute judicial secretaries. The case is in the hands of the Marbella Court of Instruction number 4.
