A police operation with dozens of agents involved led to the arrest of 31 Chinese citizens in Madrid on July 8, 2014, accused of belonging to a “criminal organization” dedicated to money laundering and debt collection with brutal beatings, according to the extensive press release. Nine years later, the Provincial Court has acquitted almost all the defendants in a sentence that describes how the Police mounted a gigantic “prospective” investigation based on a complaint for injuries to a protected witness and that it did so with the support of the Prosecutor’s Office and the endorsement of the investigating judge.
Two years ago, the organization allegedly led by Gao Ping, a businessman based in the Community of Madrid, capable of laundering hundreds of millions of euros each year through countless businesses run by compatriots, had fallen. The investigation against Gao Ping – still pending trial today – made visible the alleged crimes committed within the Chinese community, much more closed than others established in Spain, of which hardly any of its internal functioning was revealed.
When Gao Ping fell, in October 2012, the Police were already investigating another alleged Chinese mafia, the only one capable of overshadowing the “emperor”, according to newspaper reports after its dismantling. This other gang would be led by a certain Wenhai Ye Wang, alias Luis Ye, a businessman who had already been arrested in 2011 by the Civil Guard. Subsequently, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office would put in writing that his gang and Gao Ping’s were allies in the practice of extorting their compatriots.
In 2019, five years after the second arrest of Luis Ye, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office presented an indictment requesting prison sentences. between 3 and 16 years in prison for 28 people, with Wenhai Ye Wang at the helm. The Public Ministry accused them of criminal organization, money laundering, injuries, threats and damage.
Luis Ye’s gang would have used the love of gambling of some of their compatriots to make loans to them near the casinos of Aranjuez and Torrelodones and then charge them interest of up to 10% for daily delay. If they did not pay they were beaten, according to the accusation. From there, the defendants would have set up a large network of laundering the proceeds, the final objective of the investigators.
The sentence handed down by Section 17 of the Provincial Court of Madrid on June 29, to which elDiario.es has had access, establishes that the entire investigation stems from some wiretaps, proposed by the Police, supported by the Prosecutor’s Office for Madrid and endorsed by the head of the Investigating Court number 39, and that in no case could they be issued “based on the only true fact to be investigated, the complaint for a crime of injuries” that had been presented by a protected witness, a habitual confidant of the Police.
The judges explain to the investigating magistrate that a police suspicion, that of the framework that would hide behind the crime of injuries, is not an indication that supports an investigation. “In our opinion, the initial instructor activity itself is prospective, exaggerated and disproportionate,” the ruling resolves.
“The number of defendants or telephone numbers are not outlined at any time; the Police lack corroborating evidence of the participation in the crimes of those investigated; the extension of the investigation to the relatives of Wenhai (Luis Ye) and neither of the companies is justified; the proceedings are not declared secret and there is no record of the comparison of the intervened conversations [en dos dialectos chinos”, resume el tribunal la instrucción de la titular Juzgado número 39 de la capital, Belén Sánchez.
El historial del policía Gómez Gordo
La magistrada actuó a partir de un atestado del Grupo V de la Brigada de Extranjería de Madrid, dedicado a investigar los delitos cometidos en el seno de la comunidad china, la mayor parte de ellos con compatriotas como víctimas. Al frente de ella estaba el entonces inspector Miguel Ángel Gómez Gordo, implicado y exculpado en dos casos; el primero, por participar en el secuestro de una ciudadana china, en el que llegó a ser juzgado y absuelto; y el segundo, por recibir regalos y prebendas de la organización de Gao Ping, aunque la causa contra él se archivó antes de llegar a juicio.
Mientras estuvo investigado por todos esos presuntos delitos y mucho después, hasta 2015, el inspector Gómez Gordo siguió al frente del grupo de la Policía dedicado a la comunidad china en Madrid. Incluso fue ascendido durante el mandato de Jorge Fernández Díaz a inspector jefe. Posteriormente fue destinado a la Comisaría General de Extranjería y Fronteras, el órgano central de su especialidad, y puesto al mando de una sección operativa, al frente de la que continúa.
En 2018, el jefe del Grupo que investigó a Luis Ye fue condecorado con una medalla al mérito no pensionada y ya ha comenzado a preparar su ascenso a comisario, aunque por el momento no ha superado el proceso. El apellido Gómez Gordo ha adquirido relevancia por la implicación de su hermano mayor, Andrés, en la operación para espiar a Luis Bárcenas con fondos reservados, en cuya pieza del caso Villarejo está procesado. Tras aquella decisión judicial, Andrés Gómez Gordo fue apartado temporalmente del Cuerpo.
Pero los policías que idearon la operación no son los únicos que escapan a la fiscalización del trabajo que hace la sentencia. Dice la Sección 17 que la jueza Belén Sánchez no valoró los atestados policiales y se limitó a firmar las peticiones. “El auto no describe con claridad las razones de la gran cantidad de teléfonos intervenidos ni de sujetos a los que afecta, lo cual lo convierte en una resolución prospectiva que no describe la importancia de lo investigado”, añade.
Traducciones aproximadas del chino
Además, las transcripciones no fueron cotejadas por el secretario judicial y “muchas de ellas resultan improcedentes al haberse acordado sobre personas que nada tenían que ver con los hechos”, añade. “[Las intervenciones telefónicas] they infringe not only the right to privacy and the secrecy of communications but, we understand, they have not been the subject of judicial control, which makes them null and void, ”adds the sentence.
In the reports it is even said that, after the intervention of a translator, what the Police reported presents an “essential coincidence” with what the investigated people actually speak on the phone in two Chinese dialects from the provinces from which they come.
The reproaches to the actions of judge Belén Sánchez continue to include a recurring complaint from defense lawyers about the passivity with which some instructors act, giving credibility to everything that the Police presents without further study. “The investigating judge today is not limited to ‘validating’ the police request; or to act as a filter to repel abuses, abandoning the investigation to the police and limiting themselves to receiving regular accounts for ‘script requirements’. He is the one who carries out the interference, the person in charge of the investigation, the one who has to direct it (…) he is not a simple observer, an arbitrator who lets things go and only interrupts when he detects an infraction or irregularity ”, resolves the Provincial Court.
The Police itinerary was as follows: after obtaining the wiretaps of those investigated for the alleged assault denounced by his confidant, he begins to request that official letters be issued to the General Treasury of Social Security and the Tax Agency, to the casinos of Torrelodones and from Aranjuez.
The judge agreed and, according to the new information from the required bodies and companies and that of the wiretaps, the police officers requested other wiretaps that were also granted. In the police reports, the sentence reproaches, there is talk of “dangerous” people of Chinese origin, whether or not they are investigated.
And after two years, the Police consider that it is necessary to exploit the operation, arrest 31 people and carry out 21 searches. Regarding his petition, the support that Anti-Corruption gave him and the signature of the judge, the Provincial Court of Madrid considers that the agents make it “clear” in their petition that “after two years they continue to investigate, looking for evidence, indications and justifying the entry in homes for the purpose of securing the object of the crime.”
“Then they prepare a report of imputation of facts where the crimes of threats, money laundering, coercion and belonging to a criminal organization are collected. The Chamber (the court) considers that they mix similar cases of complaints from Chinese citizens who have been extorted for alleged loan debits, which are not the subject of investigation, reiterate the nine surveillances carried out in casinos, refer to similar operations against Chinese organizations and, finally, they recognize that the telephone interventions have been a way to deepen the financial framework of When Hai”.
The National Police exhibited in its press release wads of bills seized in the operation, the sum of what was collected in the twenty raids. However, the court affirms that “except for the fact that in two of them a relevant amount of money was found, in the rest the amounts found were within what an average economy can dispose of at home, with no interest on the rest of what was found.
The judge who filed the case against López Madrid in the ‘Pinto case’
Judge Belén Sánchez has already closed the case of harassment by Javier López Madrid against Dr. Pinto based on some police maneuvers in which the brother of the policeman who promoted the case of Luis Ye participated. The Provincial Court questioned the police reports that pointed to the doctor and that Judge Sánchez had considered valid. The magistrate finally proposed to try López Madrid and Commissioner Villarejo six years after the opening of the case. Legal sources say that while the case against the alleged organization of Luis Ye was being investigated, the judge supported the workload of her court and another in which she was a substitute.
In the case of the Prosecutor’s Office, it was one of the prosecutors assigned to the case who accepted the statements of the Police to open the investigation and supported them before the judge. Two years later, when the operation was about to explode, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office took over. Finally, all the defendants have been acquitted, including Luis Ye, except for one of them, who has been sentenced to six months for a crime of continuous threats and another whose lawyer agreed to a lesser sentence for money laundering.
