Twenty million euros in banknotes hidden in the walls of his home: a senior police officer has been jailed in Spain for his alleged links to drug traffickers as part of an investigation that led to the seizure of a record amount of cocaine.

With information about him describing him as a discreet and hard-working professional, Oscar Sanchez Hill held, until a few days ago, the prominent position of chief of the Spanish police’s Economic and Fiscal Crimes Unit (UDEF) in Madrid.

?? | Exjefe policial español Óscar Sánchez Gil que colaboraba con poderosa organización de narcos que transportaba droga a Europa, escondía más de 20 millones de euros en las paredes de su casa pic.twitter.com/56virMyBij

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He was arrested “last week” along with “15 other people”, including his partner, also a police officer in the Madrid region, a police source told Agence France-Presse today.

During this operation, the sum of 20 million euros in banknotes was discovered in the walls and ceilings of his home in Alcala de Henares, a town of 195,000 inhabitants located 30 kilometers east of Madrid.

Detenido el jefe de Blanqueo de la Policía en Madrid con más de 20 millones en una pared de su casa.

Guarda este post, Oscar Sánchez Gil tiene vínculos con narcos mexicanos y con políticos de Morena, introducian droga a Europa de manera descarada matando a miles de jovenes. pic.twitter.com/quvuOb6dOD

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During the search, police officers also found the sum of 1 million euros in his office, in bills of 50 to 500 euros, which he had hidden in two locked cabinets, according to the same police source.

After their arrest, Oscar Sanchez Hill and his wife appeared before a judge of the Audiencia Nacional, the Madrid judicial authority in charge of the most serious and complex criminal cases.

The judge charged them with “drug trafficking,” “corruption,” “money laundering,” “participation in a criminal organization” and ordered their detention, according to a judicial source.

As Spanish media report, these arrests are linked to the seizure, on October 14, of 13 tons of cocaine at the port of Algejira, in Andalusia (south), which had been hidden in a shipment of bananas inside a container that had left Ecuador.

The seizure, announced last Wednesday, was presented by Spanish authorities as “the largest seizure in the history of drug trafficking in Spain” and “one of the largest seizures at international level.”

The container, which had left the port of Guayaquil, was destined, police said, for a “Spanish importer” based in Alicante (southeast), “who for years had been receiving large quantities of fruit imported from Ecuador.”

Following this seizure, the authorities carried out searches of homes and offices in Madrid and Alicante. Operations that, according to these media outlets, revealed connections between the importer and Oscar Sanchez Hill.

According to the television network La Sexta, investigators suspect that this high-ranking police officer has in the past had “dealings” with this importer through a company of which he was the owner.

According to El Mundo, the head of the economic crime unit, who had also been through the anti-narcotics unit, was already under the microscope of his colleagues, who were watching him.

This father of three had been working for “at least five years” on behalf of the traffickers, according to a source cited by Spanish police.

During those years, the 40-year-old man provided them with information about monitoring containers in Spanish ports, which allowed them to avoid inspections, a source close to the investigation said.

Although his lifestyle was not ostentatious, the large sums of money found in his home led police officers, quoted by El Mundo newspaper, to compare his home “to that of Pablo Escobar”, the famous Colombian drug lord who died in 1993.

El Mundo also writes that some of the money Sanchez Hill had raised in recent years had been “legalized” through, among other things, the purchase of cryptocurrencies.