Woman "most wanted" by Europol arrested in Spain

MADRID, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Spain's Catalan regional police force (Mossos d'Esquadra) have arrested Maria Tana Varela Otero, the woman most wanted by the European Police Office (Europol), local press reported.

Varela, 44, who is from the region of Galicia in the northwest of Spain, was detained in Villanova I la Geltru, a coastal town 30 kilometers from Barcelona, on Monday, the reports said

She was the only woman and the only Spanish national to appear on the list of Europol's list of the 70 most wanted criminals.

She was arrested in the house where she had been living on her own for a considerable amount of time and the Spanish media reported that at first she had tried to confuse investigators before finally "lowering her head and accepting she had been identified."

Police had been looking for her after she was able to escape in 2011 after being condemned for drug trafficking following her original arrest in 2006 during an anti-drugs operation.

Varela had originally trained as a lawyer in Galicia, which is known as one of the doorways into Europe for drugs smuggled through Spain from Latin America. But she came to know the drug smuggler David Perez Lago and when he was arrested, she took over the running of his gang until being forced to go on the run. Enditem