According to European police, the action took place on 21 January in Lisbon and the Spanish cities of Madrid, Malaga, Marbella, Torremolinos, Coín and Ayamonte and included the seizure by authorities of more than one million euros in cash and cryptocurrencies.

The group operated mainly in Spain, where it had several offices with safes managed by clerks, who moved around 300 thousand euros in cash daily, with a protocol that included issuing receipts for the operation to the heads of the Russian organisation.

The clients of the now dismantled network were "Albanian, Serbian, Armenian, Chinese, Ukrainian, Colombian criminal organisations" and the Mocro Mafia, linked to the Netherlands, the Spanish National Police said in a statement.

"The organization charged its 'clients' a percentage of each amount moved, which varied between two and three percent of the money laundered," he added.

According to the Judicial Police (PJ), the suspects "used intermediaries to move the money ('Hawala' method), obtained mainly through drug trafficking, using their own business networks to launder the funds collected."

One person had "taken up residence in Lisbon" and was subsequently named a defendant.

The house search, carried out by the PJ's National Unit to Combat Drug Trafficking, allowed the seizure of "a considerable amount of money, electronic and computer equipment, and bank documents".

The investigation, called Strongbox, began in 2023 after systematic collections and deliveries of money by Russian citizens to people of various nationalities were detected in Spain, the National Police says.

Of the 14 detainees, three, closest to the top of the Russian mafia, were held in preventive detention in Spain.

Authorities do not rule out "future arrests."