Ecuador dismantles money laundering ring

Ecuadorian police announced on Friday that they dismantled a money laundering ring, which operated through two companies exporting gold to the United States, Deputy Interior Minister Diego Fuentes announced at a press conference.

"Seven suspects were detained" on charges of money laundering, gold smuggling and tax fraud, said Fuentes.

In the operation, 21 police units made raids in the coastal cities of Guayaquil and Machala, as well as in the province of Pichincha around Quito.

The minister said this operation was planned for 18 months and executed after detailed investigations of the financial, commercial and real estate assets of two companies, Spartan del Ecuador and Clearprocess. The buildings found in their name are worth a combined 8 million U.S. dollars.

In 2013, the two firms became among Ecuador's largest gold exporters but were found to have sold "gold from illegal mines" to American companies.

Ecuador's Ministry of Mines first alerted authorities as to these illegal exports and worked with Peruvian officials as well to figure out the routes used to get the gold out of Ecuador into Peru.

According to Fuentes, between 2012 and 2014, Ecuador officially produced gold worth 675.2 million U.S. dollars but exported as much as 1.8 billion U.S. dollars. He added that the government is hard at work to identify the "origin of this large difference."

Investigations are under way to identify further people involved in this ring. Enditem