HUGE MONEY LAUNDERING RING SMASHED

It started out on Thursday as what appeared to be a fairly low-key police operation against a local money laundering ring operating in Marbella. By Sunday, police were saying they had smashed a massive international ring with tentacles spreading across Europe and into Russia. The Spanish interior ministry said 41 people - including three notaries and five lawyers from a prestigious Marbella law firm - of at least five nationalities were arrested, and a boat, two planes and more than 40 luxury cars were seized when police carried out simultaneous surprise raids in Marbella, San Pedro de Alcántara, Mijas, Estepona and Sotogrande. Several of the people arrested are involved in estate agency businesses on the Costa del Sol. The group is suspected of laundering more than 250 million euros for gangs involved in murder, drug trafficking, arms dealing and prostitution. The ministry said it suspected that some of the cash was illegally siphoned from Russian oil company Yukos, which has been under investigation by Russian authorities seeking the repayment of 21 billion euros in alleged unpaid taxes. The company's founder, Mikhail Khordokovsky, has been in jail since October 2003 and faces separate fraud and tax evasion charges. In an interview with Moscow Radio, company spokesman Alexander Shadrin denied all wrongdoing: "The only place left to look is on Mars - did we launder something there?" he said. Spanish, French, Dutch, Finnish, Russian and Ukrainian nationals were among those arrested in the raids, which went ahead after 10 months of investigation, officials said. The operation started in Marbella on Thursday, when about 50 officers arrived at the legal firm in Calle Gómez de la Serna at 8 o'clock in the morning, accompanied by a judge. They remained there until very late that night, by which time about 20 members of staff had been remanded in custody, including secretaries, telephonists and translators. One of the notaries was arrested in a hospital where his wife was undergoing surgery, and had to accompany the police officers to the law firm in Marbella to obtain the judge's permission to return later after his wife's operation. He then went back to the hospital, with a police escort. The lawyer of another notary was angry at the police methods, saying his client has worked in Marbella for 22 years and he didn't see why the judge couldn't have telephoned her to tell her to report for questioning, instead of ordering her detention. Both Interpol and Europol were involved in what the Interior Ministry described as the biggest operation ever against money laundering on the Costa del Sol. A spokesman for Malaga's provincial government said police were already carrying out similar operations in Cádiz and Almeria, and that more arrests were expected. The Costa del Sol has long played host to a number of international criminal gangs, earning it the nickname of "Costa del Crime".