Alejandro Salgado Vega, the alleged narco known for the alias of The tigerPlantón has given the National Court on Tuesday. Judge Francisco de Jorge had called him to declare as charged in the open investigation against Óscar Sánchez, the chief inspector of the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) arrested last November with more than 20 million euros in cash in his possession (several of them, matched at his home). However, according to legal sources, the suspect has not appeared, despite the fact that he claimed to appeal in the case through his lawyer.
The Anti -Drug Prosecutor already sensed that the Tiger, despite the efforts of his defense to disconnect from this drug trafficking plot, would avoid presenting himself at the National Court. In fact, in a letter presented this April, the Public Ministry raised the judge that, if he could not locate it, issue an international search and capture order for its provisional imprisonment – a option that Jorge has on the table. Moreover, Salgado Vega accumulates other pending accounts with justice and, therefore, he has been fled for years abroad, according to several legal and police sources.
Jorge’s investigating judge charged El Tigre this April for “his alleged participation in a drug trafficking crime that causes serious health damage, in quantity of notorious importance, being part of a criminal organization and simulating international trade operations.” In addition to linking it with other drug trafficking operations, which led him to flee from justice, researchers have now related it to the band for which Inspector Oscar Sánchez worked: an alleged criminal organization directed from Spain by the alleged boss Ignacio Torán. As stated in a police report, the agents suspect that the Tiger could be the “responsible” of contacting the “suppliers at origin” of the drug moved by Torán’s group. Some sources also place it on the cusp of the network.
The National Police considers El Tigre as one of the “best known and most powerful drug traffickers in Spain.” He placed him months ago in Dubai, although legal sources believe that he could now have moved to another country. “Salgado Vega is the one who owns contacts in South America to send the substance, and makes available to such contacts, as if they were own, the importing companies provided by Torán,” the Anti -Drug Prosecutor’s Office adds in a letter dated April 15.
In that line, the judicial summary relates to El Tigre with at least a container intercepted in 2021 with 1.6 tons of cocaine hidden among pineapples, whose import is attributed to the band of Torán. The Public Ministry also links Salgado Vega with another “successful” operation of Cocaine in Spain in October 2020: “Probably 500 kilos (…) Alejandro Salgado would have intervened, with the collaboration of the business framework of Torán”. The researchers have stressed that the Tigre is also a cousin of Eduardo Montero, one of Torán’s alleged trusted men.
Last February, Salgado Vega’s lawyer asked to appeal at the summary after meeting by the press that was linked to the plot of the Chief Inspector and Ignacio Torán. The lawyer of the alleged trafficker argued that, although his client denies the accusations that can be poured against him, the facts are of “such an entity and entail a penalty of (prison of) such magnitude” that he had to give up his request to exercise his right of defense.
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