The Police have once again dealt a hard blow to the fixing in Spanish football. This Tuesday, 23 people have been arrested in the second phase of the Operation Conifera for which months ago another 21 people were arrested in the first framework of the operation.
National Police agents, in a joint operation with INTERPOL and EUROPOL, within the framework of the second phase of Operation Conifer, have arrested 23 people allegedly incriminated in the fixing of football matches in the field of the RFEF, the League National of Gibraltar and the League of Andorra.
The arrests, among which are the active members of the criminal organization, have been carried out in several provinces -Badajoz, Cádiz, Ciudad Real, Córdoba, Tenerife and in the Autonomous City of Ceuta- and add to the 21 arrests that were carried out in the first phase of the operation. Some of those arrested sold their gaming accounts so that members of the organization could place online bets on rigged matches, earning between 4,000 and 24,000 euros per gaming account.
The investigation began after the arrests and searches carried out after the first phase of the operation, in which 21 people were arrested in the provinces of Cádiz, Badajoz, Seville and Almería for allegedly belonging to a criminal organization, corruption between individuals in the sports field and scam the game operators.
Footballers, achievers and ‘mules’
As reported by the Ministry of the Interior in a statement, the structure of the organization was composed in a first step by the leaders of the lock, two people who managed the online gaming accounts and the betting presences. A second step in the plot was made up of soccer players who took advantage of their condition to organize sports fixing in the teams under their influence.
Another part of the organization was made up of procurers and “mules”, the former providing identities to operate in online betting and the latter, in charge of going in person to gambling venues to place fraudulent bets and collect the prizes obtained.
