Guberek network Spanish cell

Editorial illustration: Guberek network Spanish cell

Original archival-style illustration of records and a Madrid office; conceptual and not a depiction of a specific collection or transaction route.

The Spanish cell of the Guberek network was described by U.S. Treasury in an October 2013 Kingpin Act action as a Madrid-based money-laundering unit that collected proceeds from European narcotics sales and sent value to Colombia. Treasury designated Luis Santiago Calle Quiros, Maria Paloma Rodriguez Badillo and five associated companies. It said the cell operated under Isaac Perez Guberek Ravinovicz, whose wider network had laundered proceeds for Ayman Joumaa. The documented connection to Hezbollah therefore passes through the Guberek network and the separate Joumaa assessment; the release does not name the Spanish cell as a Hezbollah unit.

Madrid collections and Colombian payments

Treasury said Calle Quiros and Rodriguez Badillo collected cash narcotics proceeds at offices in Madrid and sent money to accounts controlled by Guberek Ravinovicz. According to the agency, those funds were used to pay traffickers in Colombia. This describes an attributed flow from a European cash collection point to Colombian disbursement, not a tracing of each bank transfer or individual drug sale.

Relationship to the Colombian organization

The July 2013 Treasury action described Isaac Perez Guberek Ravinovicz and his son Henry Guberek Grimberg as leaders of the Bogotá organization and Johanna Patricia Ceballos Bueno as its day-to-day administrator. It alleged that Colombian textile-company accounts and Panamanian shell-company accounts helped return drug proceeds to Colombia. Jose Evaristo Linares Castillo, as well as Joumaa, was identified as a customer. Those multiple-client services provide context for the Madrid cell; the release did not allocate individual Madrid collections between those customers.

People and companies

The October action designated the couple and five businesses in Spain and Peru that Treasury said were owned or controlled by Calle Quiros. It described the couple as longtime partners of Guberek Ravinovicz and said the cell operated under his direction. Designation of the businesses documents their stated ownership or control relationship; it does not imply that every employee knew of the alleged laundering.

Treasury described Calle Quiros as a Spanish-Peruvian dual national and Rodriguez Badillo as Spanish, and said the five designated companies were two in Madrid and three in Lima. It attributed ownership or control of those companies to Calle Quiros, while identifying both spouses in the Madrid cash-collection cell. Their published route ended with payments to traffickers in Colombia through Guberek-controlled accounts; no later recipient in Lebanon was specified.

OFAC’s accompanying list named the two Madrid businesses as Textimax Spain S.L. and Castizal Madrilena S.L., both at Calle Julian Camarillo 47, with a separate unit listed for Castizal. The Lima businesses were Cartronic Group Peru S.A.C., Inmobiliaria Castizal S.A.C. and Ucalsa Peru S.A. These listed business locations do not establish that every premises handled cash or performed the same financial function.

Later removals from the sanctions list

The five companies and both spouses were subsequently removed in separate OFAC actions. Cartronic Group Peru was removed on 28 April 2015. Rodriguez Badillo was removed on 29 September 2016. Calle Quiros and the remaining four companies—Textimax Spain, Castizal Madrilena, Inmobiliaria Castizal and Ucalsa Peru—were removed on 14 June 2017. The April 2015 notice had amended Calle Quiros’s company links rather than removing him at that time.

Reported Peruvian finding

El Colombiano later added an update stating that Peru’s Ministerio Público issued a July 2018 determination finding insufficient evidence to support suspicion of drug-proceeds laundering involving Calle Quiros. The newspaper also reported that the determination found no indications of a profit-generating predicate crime. This reported outcome materially qualifies the earlier allegations. It concerns Calle Quiros and should not be presented as an adjudication covering every person or company in the larger Guberek network.

Proceedings and their scope

DEA’s July 2013 announcement concerned a separate one-count laundering-conspiracy indictment against Isaac and Henry Guberek, Ceballos Bueno and Dilleman Hernando Solorzano-Lozano. It did not name either Spanish-cell spouse among those four defendants. The 2013 administrative designation, the later OFAC removals and the reported Peruvian prosecutorial determination therefore describe different actions. None should be substituted for a criminal verdict against the entire Spanish cell.

Joumaa and Hezbollah relationship

Treasury reiterated that Joumaa and another trafficker used the wider Guberek network to launder drug proceeds. Its Spanish-cell announcement did not state that the Madrid cash collection was specifically Joumaa’s money or that a payment was sent to Hezbollah. The three links—Spanish cell to Guberek, Guberek to Joumaa as a client, and Treasury’s broader Joumaa–Hezbollah assessment—must remain separate.

Matthew Levitt’s Beyond Convergence chapter describes the Madrid collections as including Joumaa’s proceeds and interprets the Guberek business as an example of financial services crossing ideological and communal boundaries. This is stronger than the October Treasury release’s broader statement that Joumaa used the Guberek network. Retaining the attribution matters: neither formulation provides a specific Madrid-to-Hezbollah payment or makes the cell an organizational branch of Hezbollah.

Cash collection and settlement

Noam Binstok, Orna Mizrahi and Esteban Klor’s May 2026 INSS analysis explains how hawala offsets and trade can settle obligations without the same physical cash following the entire payment route. It provides a useful distinction between collecting banknotes in Madrid and making value available in Colombia. The later analysis is explanatory context; it does not establish the exact instruments used by Calle Quiros or Rodriguez Badillo.

See also

• Hezbollah Business Affairs Component
• Lebanese Canadian Bank

References

Legal and sanctions status as of 7 September 2026.