The investigation of a criminal organization dedicated to transporting cannabis from Andalusia to the Nordic countries led the Swedish and Spanish police to Joakim Broberg, son of the construction businessman on the Costa del Sol Lars Gunnar Broberg, married for decades to the mayor of Marbella, Maria Angeles Munoz. The intervention of Joakim Broberg’s telephone provided a surprise to the Spanish agents when he celebrated with a partner the power that the Popular Party had revalidated in Marbella, where his stepmother governs, and the triumph months before of Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla in the regional elections : “Basically, we have fucking Andalusia.”
A company owned by the mayor of Marbella invested 3.1 million in a Luxembourg bank in 2010
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On May 29, 2019, Joakim Broderg called his “partner” Mark Holmen, also investigated in the drug trafficking and money laundering plot, from his mobile phone. It is Wednesday, it is 5:04 p.m. and barely 72 hours have passed since the municipal elections were held. Broberg is in an establishment called Sports Bar and comments: “The bald guy who was going to give us the three licenses in La Quinta is sitting next to me (…) those who gave us our license, all three…”
A little later, Broberg clarifies that “the bald man” is a position of the Benahavís City Council, another jewel for luxury real estate construction on the Costa del Sol, a town in which Muñoz was number two in the City Council and where he shares with Lars Gunnar Broberg, father of Joakim and also accused in the case, a mansion of 12 million euros. “The Bald… Do you remember? The one who is a little boss there [en Benahavís]. He is not the mayor but he is the head of the technical changes regarding licenses”, he explains. “He is sitting with the three technicians, with all of them, they have also won, an absolute majority,” Jokim Broberg adds to Holmen.
But it is then when the investigated makes a statement that puts the agents even more on guard. It is, writes the UDEF, a “very enlightening” conversation. The transcript is as follows: “Because now we have won too. Because now we have the Junta de Andalucía. We have Marbella. We have Estepona. We have it all. The city is our. Basically, we have all of fucking Andalusia. Here he is sitting with the three technicians and saying that we are going to put everything on the table. This, that and such.”
The judge of the National High Court Manuel García Castellón prosecuted 27 people on September 29 for being part of the aforementioned drug trafficking and money laundering criminal organization. According to the indictment, Jokim Broberg is one of his alleged ringleaders. His father, Lars Gunnar Broberg, would have participated in at least two money laundering operations from the sale of the drug.
The start of the operation dates back to three years earlier, when the Swedish police asked the Spanish authorities for collaboration. The Police and the Civil Guard undertook a secret investigation under the supervision of the Central Court of Instruction number 6 of the National High Court. In February 2021, the records and arrests arrived. And with them, the surprise: the husband and a stepson of the mayor of Marbella, Ángeles Muñoz, were arrested in the operation.
At that time, the PP councilor linked the operation to an attempt to damage the image of Marbella, while saying that her husband’s honorability would be demonstrated when “the secret of the summary” was lifted. elDiario.es revealed this Monday the conclusions of the same, in the form of an indictment, in which the judge proposes to try Lars Gunnar Sunne Broberg for being part of a criminal organization and “actively” participating in the laundering of the money obtained.
According to what the mayor said this Monday, the order of Judge García Castellón of September 29 and the decision last Thursday to stop the action against Lars Gunnar Broberg, 80, due to his alleged poor health, would be framed in the proximity of the elections. “There are those who want to insist again, we already know that there is interest, there are elections close and the fair has gone very well. From there it is clear that there is a group that has a special interest”, said Muñoz when asked at a press conference.
In the UDEF report incorporated into the case, the police warn: “Given the findings resulting from the intervention of Joakim Broberg’s telephone that are communicated in the present, it is requested that the investigation be extended to the crimes of bribery, prevarication and influence peddling”. In the same conclusions, the UDEF requested, as it happened, that the proceedings be declared secret.
Sources in the case have explained to elDiario.es that the voluminous and convoluted plot of drug trafficking and money laundering has capitalized on the investigation, but that the line that points to possible crimes of corruption has not been closed and that in this regard the shots of statement set for those under investigation next November.
“El Calvo”, in the Department of Urbanism
Jokim Broberg’s statement (49 years old) put the police to work on a new line of investigation. The UDEF agents identified the “bald man”, Juan Carlos C.R, assigned to the City Council’s Urban Planning Service. The police officers also found an urban planning license granted by the Benahavís City Council with the signature of the mayor José Antonio Mena Castilla and the aforementioned Juan Carlos C. R as secretary. “Consulted the police databases, their physical characteristics coincide with the name used by Broberg,” the agents add in their report.
The plans of Broberg and Holmen remained to be identified: the construction of a luxury house “probably located” in La Quinta, El Colorado area, in the town of Benahavís. “Holmen tells Broberg that no one can go to work until they have a building permit and asks him for help with the issue, highlighting the influence Broberg has in the local corporation,” writes the Police.
The UDEF concludes: “From the intercepted telephone conversations with Joakim Broberg, it can be deduced the great influence that the Swede has in the decisions of the Benahavís City Council on urban matters and this is due to his family relations with the councilor from Marbella, a neighboring town and who was also mayor [en realidad teniente de alcalde] in the past (between the years 95 and 98). He would use this influence for his own benefit, counting on the collaboration of people from his close circle.”
The call with Mark Holmen is not the only one that caught the attention of the UDEF. A few days later, on June 2, 2019, Joakim Broberg dials the phone of a company called the Golf Valley Administration, but the person who answers the other end identifies himself as “Vega Colorado.” It is a builder of his father, Lars Gunnar Broberg. Golf Valley Administration is registered in the name of the Balmaseda de Ahumada brothers.
Juan Luis Balmaseda, former deputy mayor of the Jesús Gil party in Marbella, was the representative of the Gibraltarian society through which Lars and Mayor Muñoz bought their mansion in Behenavís. Vega Colorado is in turn the company that benefited from Muñoz reorganizing the urban plan in 2008 and giving land to Benahavís because it was possible to build in this town. The matter reached the Supreme Court, which ended up filing it.
“According to the telephone interception, Joakim Broberg would be using the important influences he has for his own benefit, with respect to the municipalities in which he carries out his activity in collaboration with his partner Mark Holmen, and may be perpetrating crimes related to corruption.”
“Pedro Sánchez is the dumbest president there has ever been”
A third call, dated May 30, 2019, allows Broberg to call an architectural firm and mediate on behalf of a Russian named Oleg Gurkov. This businessman has a problem with the permit for a local terrace. Broberg speaks with Nicolás Aguado, who replies: “I didn’t know anything about that, nobody has told me anything.” The UDEF concludes that in this way, the mayor’s stepson denotes “his strong links with the Marbella City Council.” “It’s the Blue thing, in Marbella, the Oleg thing. That came the day before the elections”, says Joakim Broberg.
There is a fourth issue, in another call on June 2. Joakim calls Holmen and suggests going to see “Titi’s sister”, who would work “for the responsibility of Puerto Banús [Marbella]”. According to the Police, it refers to Estrella MU, management secretary at Puerto Banús SA since May 1983.
And there is something else in that conversation, Broberg calls an interlocutor and they speak in English about a certain Bigas, who “knows the Minister of Tourism of Spain”. “Now he’s a fucking socialist, but yeah, we can get to him,” he adds. “You know that those who govern now are the Spanish socialists, right?” His interlocutor replies yes and that “that’s scary.” Joakim concludes: “Pedro Sánchez is the dumbest president who has ever governed the country.”
