CBS News
Spain arrests top police officer after over $21 million found at his home following record cocaine bust
Spain has arrested one of its top police officers after 20 million euros were found hidden in the walls of his house, as part of a probe into the country’s largest-ever cocaine bust.
Described as discreet and hard-working, Oscar Sanchez Gil was until recently the head of the fraud and anti-money laundering division of Spain’s National Police force in Madrid.
Officers arrested him last week along with 15 other people, including his romantic partner, a police source told AFP. The source did not name the romantic partner, who is also a police officer in the Madrid region.
During the raid, police found 20 million euros, or around $21.1 million, in cash hidden in the walls and ceilings of the couple’s home in Alcala de Henares, a town of around 195,000 inhabitants located some 18 miles east of the Spanish capital.
Officers also uncovered one million euros in his office, hidden in two locked cupboards, in bills of 50 to 500 euros, according to the police source.
The couple have been charged with drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and membership in a criminal organization after last week appearing before a Madrid court, which remanded them in custody, a judicial source told AFP.
Spanish media said the arrests were linked to a cocaine seizure in Algeciras on October 14 from a container ship that had arrived from Ecuador’s largest city Guayaquil, a drug-trafficking hub. The cocaine was hidden in crates of bananas. Fruit screens had been placed to hide the cocaine, police said in a news statement.
Police said the drug bust is the largest-ever haul of cocaine in Spain and “one of the largest seizures in the world”.
The container was destined for a Spanish importer based in the southeastern coastal town of Alicante “who had been receiving large quantities of fruit imported from Ecuador for years”, the authorities said. Spanish police said they cooperated with the National Police of Ecuador to intercept the shipment.
Spain, a main gateway into Europe for Latin American cocaine, has cracked down on drug shipments arriving from Latin America. Cocaine seizures at European ports have reached record levels, the head of Europol’s narcotics unit Robert Fay told the AFP.
Spain worked with counterparts in June to arrest 40 people in a years-long operation to bust a major drug smuggling ring. In July Spain participated in a takedown of a major network transporting Latin American cocaine into Europe by boat, which involved 50 arrests across eight countries. Twenty-six of the detainees were arrested in Spain.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
The new Department of Government Efficiency, a group created by President-elect Donald Trump with the task of identifying ways to cut federal spending and headed by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, is already taking resumes.
The request for job applicants was posted Thursday by the new X account for DOGE, which despite its heady mission isn’t an official government department. In his statement on Tuesday announcing the effort, Trump described Musk and Ramaswamy’s role as providing “advice and guidance from outside of government.”
It’s unclear where the funding for DOGE will come from or the size of its budget, as well as whether Musk, the world’s richest person, and Ramaswamy, who has an estimated net worth of $1 billion, will be paid for their efforts. The Trump campaign didn’t respond to a request for information.
In the meantime, DOGE is starting to hire, according to the post on X, the social media service (formerly known as Twitter) owned by Musk. The account already has 1.2 million followers on the platform.
What qualifications is DOGE looking for?
The post didn’t disclose the specific educational or career experience it is looking for in applicants. Instead, it described the kind of person they want to hire: “We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.”
It added that it doesn’t want “more part-time idea generators.”
How can people apply for a DOGE job?
The post said that interested applicants should send a direct message, or DM, to the account with their CV, although the DOGE account wasn’t open to messages when the job notice was first posted.
“Off to a great start. ‘DM this account with an application’,” one person pointed out. “DMs not open.”
Even after the DOGE account opened to direct messages, not all X users could send their resumes because only verified accounts or accounts followed by DOGE are able to DM the account. The DOGE account currently doesn’t follow any other X users, and verification on the platform costs $84 a year.
Only the “top 1% of applicants” will be reviewed by Musk and Ramaswamy, the DOGE account added. The post didn’t specify how it will rank applicants.
What does a DOGE job pay?
The post didn’t specify the salary range or benefits.
What kind of response is the post receiving?
A mix of pointed questions, humor as well as support from fans of Musk and Trump.
“Anything over 40 hours will be paid overtime right?” one person posted on X in response to the job post.
Others posted tongue-in-cheek “qualifications,” with one person writing, “I’d love to join here’s my resume: – B+ in Science – JV soccer team (2 years) – Can eat >10 Oreos in one sitting – Owner of several Dogecoins – Can burp the alphabet – Can run fast (top 25% of class).”
Another touted his “104 IQ (4 points above highest score possible).”
Valentina Gomez, a Republican politician who posted a video of herself burning books in February, responded, “But I’m ready to cut & make a dent on that outstanding budget. TSI, IRS, ATF are the first to go.”
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
