National Police officers in Marbella have arrested Georgian mafia leader Alexander Kalashov under an international extradition warrant issued by his native Georgia.
The mob leader, on €300,000 bail since March, will appear in court today for the start of extradition proceedings.
Only last Tuesday, Kalashov was sentenced to seven years and six months in jail for the crime of money laundering. In addition, he was fined €20 million. It was also ruled that once Kalashov had either achieved ;third grade; prison status or had served two-thirds of his sentence, he would be expelled from Spain and not allowed to return to Spanish territory for ten years.
Kalashov was arrested in Dubai in May 2006, several months after the start of ‘Operation Avispa’ in which 22 mafia bosses from the former USSR were detained. During the operation, 41 houses were seized and over 800 bank accounts in 42 different banks were blocked.
The prosecution alleged that Kalashov was an important leader of the Russian mafia responsible for laundering significant amounts of money obtained from drugs and arms trafficking, contract killings, extortion, smuggling and also money related to the control of casinos in the Russian Federation.