Basque businessman Alejandro Hamlyn arrested in Dubai, facing 89 years imprisonment
Dubai police arrested businessman Alejandro Hamlyn following an Interpol warrant. Spain's National Court is seeking him for fraud involving €154 million.
Arrest in Dubai of businessman Hamlyn, fugitive since June 2025
The Basque businessman Alejandro Hamlyn was detained on Monday in Dubai by police, sought by Spain's National Court after failing to appear for his trial on fraud charges in June 2025. According to reports first advanced by The Objective and confirmed by El País through police sources, the arrest was carried out in response to a red notice from Interpol activated after the court issued a search and arrest warrant against him.
In the main case, Hamlyn is accused of leading a fraudulent scheme through his oil company Hafesa Energía, by which he allegedly evaded more than €154 million in VAT through the sale of hydrocarbons. The Public Prosecutor's Office is seeking 89 years imprisonment for him on charges of money laundering, directing a criminal organisation and crimes against the Treasury. The businessman had claimed in June 2025 that the emirate authorities prevented him from leaving the country due to an alleged debt of €7,000. Following his arrest, the same police sources indicate that the extradition process to Spain could take "several months".
The recordings that raised the profile of the case
The media reach of the Hamlyn case does not derive primarily from the tax fraud—for which he had been prosecuted since 2021 with little coverage—but from a recorded encounter that reached public attention on 26 May 2025, precisely the day his trial began at the National Court. In that recording, former socialist activist Leire Díez is heard requesting from Hamlyn compromising information about Anti-Corruption Prosecutor José Grinda and Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas, the top official of the Civil Guard's Anti-Corruption Unit investigating matters related to the PSOE, the Government and the entourage of President Pedro Sánchez.
The meeting also involved businessman Javier Pérez Dolset and lawyer Jacobo Teijelo, all of them accused in the so-called Leire Díez case, which is being heard by judge Santiago Pedraz. The recordings also contained insinuations of alleged favours from the Prosecutor's Office in exchange for the collaboration being sought. Following the release of the videos, Hamlyn granted an interview in which he claimed to feel used "as a political weapon" and stated: "When I refused to collaborate in their plot against the Civil Guard, they reactivated the criminal case against me".
Dubai, common refuge for international fugitives
The Persian Gulf emirate has consolidated itself in recent years as a recurring destination for people fleeing justice. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has categorised it as a paradise for international criminals, including major drug traffickers, attracted by the luxury and by the difficulties that other countries have historically encountered in obtaining cooperation from local authorities on extradition matters.
Despite the United Arab Emirates, the state of which Dubai is part, being members of Interpol—as are most Arab states—judicial cooperation with other countries was limited for years. However, El País notes that in the recent period Dubai has begun to facilitate the handover of some of the fugitives requested by third countries who were sheltering in its territory, a change in stance that would have made possible the arrest of Hamlyn.
Source: El País