Aki Johannes Kujala

Aki Johannes Kujala, suspect in involvement in the White Whale case, when he declared his annual income at only 50,000 euros, while living a life of luxury and expensive style. The 41-year-old Finn, a resident on the Costa del Sol, had already been investigated by the police for money-laundering and financial crimes in his own country on various occasions, and had been convicted by a Finnish court in 1997.

Kujala held shares in a total of 21 companies, ranging from a gymnasium to real estate and audio-visual businesses. He lived a fast life-style, both figuratively and literally, owning a number of luxury cars, including Ferraris and top-of-the-range Mercedes, and was also the owner of a luxury yacht. He owned a 50 per cent stake in Gestierra, a company partly owned by Francisco Calle, brother-in-law of the former mayor of Manilva, Pedro Tirado, who was jailed two weeks ago on various counts of fraud. The Finnish connection was through a company called Royal Marbella Estates, to which the mayor of Manilva had sold his signature on a re-zoning order, favourable, of course, to the company in question. Aki Johannes Kujala had purchased a number of plots on the land which was later re-zoned.

Kujala’s partner in the Marbella gymnasium was Italian Luigi Protani, who was wanted by the Italian police for drug trafficking, and who had been arrested in Spain in 2001 and subsequently handed over to the Italians for his involvement in an international drug ring. Protani has been in prison in Rome since 2003, convicted of having taken part in the sale of 200 kilos of Venezuelan cocaine to an Italian gang.

The police also discovered that another partner in the gymnasium was Moroccan Ghali Lamrani, who lived in the same building as Kujala. Lamrani has since ended up in a Moroccan prison for his part in a drugs deal in which 350 kilos of cocaine were seized by Dutch police in Rotterdam port. Lamrani’s name was also linked to the Fun Fair Investments and Gavaid Corporation companies run by Fernando del Valle.

Lamrani was also in partnership with another Moroccan, Otham Soussi, who was tried and convicted of money-laundering, tax evasion and smuggling by the Audiencia Nacional (Central Criminal Court) in Madrid in 2002. Police investigators found that the Aki Kujala companies were paying out more than they were taking in, and could not account for the origin of this money, much of which was coming from abroad. But apart from their questionable business practice, there was also the direct relationship, both as partners and on a personal level, between them and the Marbella money-laundering network.