Authorities in Colombia and Spain have dismantled a major network used by drug cartels to launder millions through cryptocurrency. The two-and-a-half-year investigation, dubbed Operation Gulupa, targeted the Clan del Golfo and revealed sophisticated methods to hide illicit funds from cocaine sales. At least $46 million was laundered via digital wallets and shell companies across multiple countries.
The coordinated effort between Colombian and Spanish authorities, known as Operation Gulupa, has uncovered how powerful drug cartels like the Clan del Golfo have shifted to cryptocurrency for money laundering since late 2020. This marks the most significant crypto-related case in Colombia's justice system to date.
The probe began in 2021 following a Belgian raid on Sky ECC, an encrypted messaging service used by organized crime. Decrypted messages exposed four Colombians coordinating cocaine shipments to Europe. Investigators traced an 'invisible' network linked to Clan del Golfo, which trafficked drugs hidden in shipments of gulupa fruit—a purple-shelled delicacy—from Colombian and Ecuadorian ports. Shipments often paused in the Caribbean for repackaging before reaching Spain, Portugal, and Belgium. For a typical 200-kilogram load, the cartel received 25 billion pesos in payment.
Cash from European cocaine sales was collected by local intermediaries outside banking channels. In a parallel process, another intermediary in a different country delivered equivalent cryptocurrency to the sellers. To maintain appearances of legitimacy, the funds moved through exchange platforms in small, fragmented transactions across various wallets.
By 2022, the group had set up shell companies under the name B2Tech in six nations: Spain, Lithuania, the United States, Nicaragua, the Czech Republic, and El Salvador. In Colombia, it posed as an industrial cybersecurity firm. Authorities estimate at least 170 billion pesos—about $46 million—were laundered this way.
Key arrests include Pablo Felipe Prada Moriones, alias 'Black Jack,' and his brother Santiago, alias 'Marco,' detained by Spain's Civil Guard in Madrid and Ibiza. In Colombia, Jimmy Garcia Solarte, accused of transporting funds, and Brenda Yineth Pineda, representative of front companies, were apprehended.
This operation underscores a growing trend among groups like Clan del Golfo and FARC dissidents, who convert cash into crypto in lax jurisdictions, fragment it to obscure trails, and reintegrate it into the economy. Colombia saw over $40 billion in crypto transactions between 2023 and 2024, ranking it among Latin America's top five markets, according to the Financial Information and Analysis Unit.
