ANTONIO GIMENEZ RASO - From a top job in the Catalonian Police Force, to McCann Team lead private eye, employed by Metodo 3, to a Barcelona jail on corruption and theft charges

by **Tony Bennett** 08.05.12 15:18

This will be in the form of an archive, rather than one of my long-winded articles in which I try to connect up some of the many dots in the case. I will collect what is known about him on this thread.

ANTONIO GIMENEZ RASO IN COURT: 25 FEBRUARY 2011

This article has been translated exclusively from the original Spanish for The Madeleine Foundation by an Accredited Police Station and Court Interpreter who is currently on the National U.K. Translators' Register, and was paid for from Madeleine Foundation funds.

Antonio Gimenez Raso has a twin brother, Carlos.

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ALLEGATIONS OF CORRUPTION IN CATALUNIA.

Prosecution requests that nine civil guards be remanded in custody for alleged links with a drug-trafficking network.

One lieutenant colonel from the Armed Forces Institute faces a 13 year prison sentence.

The alleged plot involves the theft of drugs from a container at the Port of Barcelona.

Friday, 25 February 2011, 13:15 hours.

J.G. ALBALAT / A. BAQUERO / Barcelona

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(Photograph)

The defendants charged with police corruption gave evidence at court in Martorell on 13^th February 2009: Lieutenant Colonel López-Rubio, white-haired and wearing a brown leather coat. FERRAN NADEU.

Fernando Bermejo, representing the Barcelona Office of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, requested custodial sentences from 2 years and 3 months to 52 years in the prosecution documentation, in relation to the alleged involvement in a corruption plot of 25 people who are connected with a major drug trafficking ring. They include nine civil guards (one of them a lieutenant colonel), two officers from the National Police Agency and one journalist. The indictment was filed by the Public Ministry at the Provincial High Court in Barcelona, where the trial is to be held. It is one of the major police corruption cases ever to be uncovered in Catalunia, discovered as a result of investigations into the theft in 2005 of 400 kilos of cocaine from a container in the Port of Barcelona.

The copious and detailed prosecution documentation submitted by prosecutor Señor Bermejo provides details of the alleged criminal activity, which involves conspiracy, drug trafficking, false imprisonment, bribery, money laundering, breach of confidentiality and failure to investigate or prosecute for irregular activities. Nine civil guards, including Lieutenant Colonel Alfonso López Rubio, for whom the prosecution has requested a 13 year custodial sentence, face charges of bribery and uttering threats Other officers from the Armed Forces Institute who are named in the criminal judicial proceedings are Antonio Sáenz Martínez, who is known as “Tete”, who faces 23.6 to 24.6 years in prison, and non commissioned officer Roberto de Prádena, who faces 13 years). Both defendants allegedly relied on officers who were known as “the soldiers”. The prosecution has requested that the court impose an 18 year custodial sentence on the former police officer Antonio Giménez Raso, and seven and a half years for his brother Carlos. The clamour for custodial sentences, however, is loudest with regard to the alleged leaders and members of the drugs ring: Javier Segura, Daniel Ribelles, David Barba and Antonio Bals.

How the plot originated

The plot was hatched in 1999 as a result of a “criminal stronghold” exercised by those who are now charged with offences. Segura, who was known as “Trapero” (= the Scrap Dealer), Ribeles as “Bolo” (= Bolus), Bals as “El Gordo” (= the Jackpot) or “el de los desguaces” (= the Man from the Chop Shop), according to the prosecution, were assisted by other individuals who were friends from the criminal underworld, had been fellow prison inmates, or were connected with “illegal trafficking of drugs and stolen vehicles”, and also by another group which was headed by the defendants who used to be police officers and civil guards.

The network’s activities began in January 1999 with the theft of a number of bales of hashish which were being stored in a vehicle workshop at Mollet del Vallès. Further incidents of disappearance of drugs later occurred. According to the prosecution file, some of the prosecuted police officers shared in the proceeds of this activity. Similarly, they were able to take advantage of “classified information” at their disposal, which also provided them with “the necessary infrastructure in order to be able to achieve their premeditated criminal objectives whilst benefitting from immunity.”

The final straw

The theft at the port was the final straw. The journalist who is involved in these proceedings is accused of allegedly defaming Civil Guard Colonel Miguel Gómez Alarcón, who led the investigation into the alleged corrupt plot and fraud. The investigation was led by a female investigating judge at Martorell and by two prosecutors, Fernando Bermejo and David Martínez Madero (the latter, a former manager at the Anti-Fraud Agency, passed away recently).

TRANSLATION OF ARTCLE RE ANTONIO GIMENEZ RASO,

25 February 2011

by **Tony Bennett** 08.05.12 15:55

This article was tranlated from Spanish newspaper El Pais. It highlights the alleged crimes of Antonio Gimenez Raso, his twin brother Carlos, seven civil guard officers, two lawyers and a journalist who all (allegedly) collaborated with an exceptionally violent criminal gang over a period of at least 6 years. It is alleged that Antonio Gimenez Raso leda 'group' of gangsters.

This article has also been translated exclusively from the original Spanish for The Madeleine Foundation by an Accredited Police Station and Court Interpreter who is currently on the National U.K. Translators' Register, and was paid for from Madeleine Foundation funds.

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A lieutenant colonel in the Civil Guard is prosecuted for belonging to a drugs mafia.

Seven Civil Guard officers are involved in the plot. Wednesday, 11^th November 2009

– visited 1141 times.

Lieutenant colonel indicted as mafia man.

The judge also linked seven Civil Guard officers, two former police officers, two lawyers and a journalist with a gang that stole 400 kilos of cocaine in Barcelona.

27 people appeared before Martorell Investigating Court No. 3 in Barcelona, accused of belonging to a mafia network which allegedly stole 400 kilos of cocaine which was concealed in the port of Barcelona, and also of carrying out various thefts, fraud and extortion. The accused include Lieutenant Coronel Alfonso López Rubio of the Civil Guard, seven officers of the Civil Guard and two former police inspectors. The prosecutions are the culmination of a complex investigation initiated by the Office of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, implicating former prison inmates, police informers, two Barcelona lawyers and a former journalist of the daily newspaper El Mundo.

The judge imposed deposit of bail security in excess of 41 million Euros and they were charged with various offences relating to drug trafficking, joint criminal enterprise, false imprisonment, inflicting grievous bodily harm using a firearm, money laundering, fraud and corruption in public office. Eighteen individuals were finally cleared of any wrongdoing, including Marc Homedes a, former press officer of the Mossos d’Esquadra* and Francisco Javier Gaspar, a former spokesman for the Barcelona Civil Guard.

The judge stated that the gang was formed in 1999 from a “criminal stronghold” comprising Javier Segura, Daniel Ribelles, Antonio Balas and David Barba, among others. They are all currently in prison. They are joined by other “friends from the criminal underworld” or former prison inmates who had served time for drug trafficking or vehicle thefts, and by members of a second group led by brothers Antonio and Carlos Giménez Raso, who were at that time police inspectors, and by civil guards Antonio Sáenz and Roberto de Prádena, who “made use of” other officers who were nicknamed “the soldiers”.

The criminal activities attributed to them began in January 1999 with the theft of bales of hashish which were being stored in a vehicle workshop at Mollet del Vallès. These were followed by similar thefts which took place during subsequent years, facilitated by the “restricted information” to which the gang had access, and by the “infrastructure necessary to guarantee impunity”.

These activities culminated in a theft which took place in the Port of Barcelona. A boat called La Hispaniola had arrived in the port on 22 November 2004 and the Civil Guard subsequently discovered 1,077 kilos of cocaine concealed inside a container of prawns. The court ordered transfer and evacuation of the cocaine; however, on 24 January 2005 the port surveillance patrol discovered that the container had been opened, the thieves having jumped over the port fence, disabled the security cameras and used all the appropriate equipment.

The judge stressed that the group in question had knowingly prepared for the theft, and that a quantity of 200 to 400 kilos of cocaine had been taken. An investigation was carried out by the judicial authorities and several defendants were sent to prison as a result of the investigation led by Colonel Miguel Gómez Alcarón of the Civil Guard. The judge stated that at this point the two lawyers and the El Mundo journalist stepped in, in order to cast doubt on the reputation of Gómez Alarcón, and that they published news which led to complaints being filed. The objective of this was to produce “media pressure” in order to achieve the defendants’ release from custody.

From El País, daily newspaper

(*Translator’s note: The Mossas d’Esquadra is the name of the police force of Catalunia)

ARTICLE DATED 11 NOVEMBER 2009

by **Tony Bennett** 08.05.12 16:01

Another article about Antonio Gimenez Raso, from February 201. This article has been translated exclusively from the original Spanish for The Madeleine Foundation by an Accredited Police Station and Court Interpreter who is currently on the National U.K. Translators' Register, and was paid for from Madeleine Foundation funds:

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Prosecution of 11 police officers and civil guards whose task it was to carry out raids on drug dealers.

PERE RĺOS Barcelona, 26 February 2011

Prosecutor Fernando Bermejo filed an indictment at the Provincial High Court in Barcelona against 25 individuals who are accused of being part of a network of corrupt police officers, drugs trafficking and extortion. They are being charged with offences relating to conspiracy to commit criminal offences, bribery, drug trafficking, false imprisonment, breach of confidentiality and money laundering, and the prosecution is requesting that the court impose custodial sentences ranging from two and a half to 50 years.

Nine civil guards are among the accused ( including Lieutenant Colonel Alfonso López Rubio, a non-commissioned officer and a sergeant), two chief inspectors of the National Police Agency (the twin brothers Antonio and Carlos Giménez Raso) and the then journalist of the El Mundo newspaper, Fernando García, who the prosecution accuses of defamation and fraud. The remainder all have criminal records and the prosecution refers to them as “soldiers” because their role was simply to obey orders.

The group stole 220 kilos of cocaine from a container at the port.

Further information: A senior officer of the Civil Guard was cleared as the statute of limitations for the offences had run out.

The group’s activity consisted of carrying out drug raids in the Barcelona area and then, by virtue of their status as police officers and also by the information available to them, they would confiscate and subsequently sell the drugs without leaving any trace. Their most important act took place in 2005 in the Port of Barcelona, when the group stole 220 kilos of cocaine from a container which had come from Venezuela.

This is one of the largest networks of police corruption ever uncovered in Catalunia, and it is characterised by the extreme violence of those involved. The prosecutor explained that the reason this case was delayed in the courts for a period of over 15 months was: “due not least to causes beyond the control of the justice agencies, such as the unprecedented level of violence demonstrated by some of the network’s members.” The prosecutor went on to state that one should not forget the grievous insults which were made by some of the defendants to the female investigating judge who took statements from them, to the court clerk and to the prosecutor in the case, David Martínez Madero, who died a month ago, having dedicated himself wholly to achieving success in this case. The prosecutor placed Javier Segura at the top of the corrupt network and said that officers Antonio Sáenz Martínez and Roberto de Prádena were “the criminal nucleus within the Civil Guard”, requesting that the court impose prison sentences of 52, 26 and 13 years respectively. They were responsible for managing the group’s actions and coordinating all its members.

The first act took place in the summer of 2000, when they travelled in a vehicle to Morocco to collect 175 kilos of hashish, from which one of the police inspectors involved was due to profit. The trip was frustrated when they were arrested by the Moroccan police. They tried again several months later, when they tricked a trafficker into handing over to them a further 100 kilos of hashish. During his journey, he was intercepted by a Civil Guard vehicle in which some of the defendants were travelling, and consequently the trafficker ended up “without his hashish and also without his money, whilst the group shared out the profits derived from the aforementioned illegally obtained drugs,” in the words of the prosecutor.

However, their star haul was to take place during the early hours of 21st January, when they broke open a container which was being stored in the Port of Barcelona and removed from it various packages of high purity cocaine with a combined weight of 220 kilos. The prosecutor stated that the street value per kilo of cocaine at that time was 30,000 Euros. In actual fact, an additional 180 kilos of cocaine was inside the container. Several hours after they had left, some other delinquents turned up at the scene and collected 100 kilos of the drug which still remained. The leader of the group, Javier Segura, who was released last June by the Provincial High Court in Barcelona, found out about this and, accompanied by his lieutenant Daniel Ribelles, went to find the delinquent in question on the 1^st March 2005. They took him to Collserola Park, beat him up and shot him in the legs. The prosecutor stated that they then left him outside the Vall d’Hebron hospital, but that the injured man did not in fact ever enter the hospital building.

What is certain is that the Catalunia Supreme Court of Justice, presided over by judge Maria Eugenia Alegret, never gave the Martorell Investigating Court No. 3 (which was conducting the investigation into this case) any public sign of support. Finally the judge left, leaving the proceedings paralysed and unable to progress for months on end. However, the prosecutor explained that in January 2008 one of the defendants decided to cooperate with the justice process and told everything he knew, so the most prominent defendants consequently ended up in prison.

The prosecutor stated that at this point the El Mundo journalist entered the picture and started writing articles to discredit the professional career of Colonel Miguel Alarcón Gómez and his Civil Guard operations unit. In fact, the Colonel had relentlessly sought to prosecute the corrupt officers in his corps. This is how it came about that articles were published alleging various crimes had been committed, which in turn led to complaints being filed.

The prosecutor then went on to give details of the large number of properties owned by some of the accused, which were allegedly purchased with the proceeds of the sale of drugs.

[size=18]NOTE: THIS TRIAL IS CONTINUING AND THERE WILL BE MORE COVERAGE IN THE COMING WEEKS[/size]

by **Tony Bennett** 08.05.12 16:05

Twin brothers Antonio Gimenez Raso and Carlos Giminez Raso appeared in court in April this year and unconvincingly deny all charges. This article has been translated exclusively from the original Catalan langauge for The Madeleine Foundation by an Accredited Police Station and Court Interpreter who is currently on the National U.K. Translators' Register, and was paid for from Madeleine Foundation funds:

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The two officers from the National Police Agency deny having co-operated with “the port gang”.

19 April 2012.

Barcelona, 19^th April (EFE). The two chief inspectors from the National Police Agency who are accused of cooperating with “the port gang” today denied receiving cash from the Barcelona port plotters in return for impunity and they denounced what they described as a “set-up” to involve them.

The two officers from the National Police Agency currently on trial are brothers and are known as “Los Cromos “(=The Chromes) and also as “Los Gemelos” (= The Twins). They are Antonio G.R., former chief inspector of the Barcelona organized crime unit, for whom the prosecution is requesting a 17 year custodial sentence, and his brother Carlos G.R., also a former chief inspector from the organized crime unit, who faces a seven and a half year custodial sentence.

The two officers gave evidence today at the major trial which is taking place at the Provincial High Court in Barcelona, concerning a gang which was allegedly composed of drug traffickers and corrupt police officers, which was uncovered following the theft of 400 kilos of cocaine from a container at the Port of Barcelona in 2005.

The prosecution alleges that the two chief inspectors of the National Police Agency received gifts and various sums of money from the leaders of the criminal gang in exchange for impunity, and they are charged with joint criminal enterprise and drug-related offences for allegedly participating in various drug trafficking operations whilst they were law enforcement officers.

Today, various recordings were played to the court of telephone conversations which took place during 2005 between the defendants Javier S.R., AKA “Trapero” (=Scrapman), who was the alleged leader of the criminal gang, David B.V., another member of the gang, and Antonio S.M., an officer of the Civil Guard.

In these conversations they are discussing handing over 3,000 Euros to Antonio G.R., a sum which the National Police Agency officer today denied ever having received:

“I have not received any money at all from them” (referring to the defendants) “neither have I received any money from anyone else during my whole professional career,” Antonio G.R. insisted, when questioned on this topic by the prosecutor.

The National Police Agency officer admitted that he had had just once had dealings with David B.V., whom he said that he had met because David had wanted to provide him with information concerning how they could snare a gang of drug traffickers.

He also admitted to having had a similar relationship with Antonio B.V., another defendant accused of participation in a drugs transporting operation, but he claimed that this was only in their capacity as policeman and informant, and he stated that he only knew him because he had previously arrested him for committing criminal offences.

Antonio G.R. insisted that in both cases these were professional relationships, the objective of which was to gather valuable information in order to prosecute criminals, and he denied receiving money in exchange for a guarantee that members of the alleged gang would not be prosecuted, adding: “It would indeed be a sad and sorry day for this country if police officers were to grant immunity to persons who were getting a free ride to commit crimes.”

His brother, Carlos G.R., who also pleaded not guilty, described the allegations made against him as “evil” and assured the court that everything was simply a “set up” the aim of which was to implicate him and his brother. “I have never, ever received anything at all,” he protested.

During the major trial, which is expected to continue until mid June amid a state of heightened security, seven civil guards and two officers from the National Police Agency are on trial with a number of habitual offenders, as the result of a tip-off from the repentant offender Juan Pedro L.F. , who was convicted of killing two security guards in an armoured van at Terrassa (Barcelona).

by mira2 16.05.12 22:03

Tony,

I am new to this forum, past 5 years posting only on Sky news regarding this case.

I admire your stance, you are a very brave individual to go the lenghts that you do to expose the corruption within the system that prevents new leaders regardeless or what party they stand for, or their ideals ever making one iota of a difference to a system that is inherently corrupt. The only difference between today and 100 years ago is that the public today cannot pretend that we do know what is happening out there.

As a society we the people have to take responsible for what goes down in our name, we have to ask questions of those who we elect to serve us, and we have to demand that those that we elect are accountable for their actions, which begs the Q where were WE when T. Blair and his outfit i.e. Murdoch were running amok in Iraq?

Tony,wish you luck in the upcoming Mccanns doing everything and anything but co-operating with the investigation that demands that they eliminate themselves from the enquiry trial against you.

Something tells me that the McCann show is coming to an end.