The details are being revealed in pre-trial documents prepared for court by investigators in Madrid and seen by Bloomberg. The alleged protagonists were formally named as suspects, or investigado in Spanish. None has been charged.At the center of the network sits a suspected drug lord by the name of Ignacio Torán, according to investigators. Described as a Real Madrid fan with a penchant for luxury watches, at one point he planned to use his wealth to invest in football players from Argentina.Allegedly working for him was Óscar Sánchez, who at the time of the 2024 cocaine bust was chief of the national police’s money-laundering unit. Sánchez is suspected of using his position to help traffickers. When police raided Sánchez’s home, they found €20 million hidden in the walls of his house, Spanish media reported.Torán and Sánchez are in Spain and were held on remand in prison. A lawyer for Torán declined to comment. Sánchez’s lawyer didn’t deny that money was found in his client’s home, but questioned the legitimacy and procedure in the allegations against him. Messages used as evidence, for example, were obtained without the necessary court orders, for example, the lawyer told Bloomberg.According to investigators, Torán also employed Francisco de Borbón, the son of a duke and a distant cousin to Spain’s King Felipe, and Ketan Seth, an American investor based in a mansion in Newport Beach’s upscale Dover Shores neighborhood.Investigators say that Seth and De Borbón were managing partners at Alpha Trading, a Californian firm that was funneling Torán’s drug money from offshore accounts at a bank in Panama.It’s unclear how Seth and De Borbón first crossed paths but they founded Alpha Trading in 2012, describing it as a “leading integrated commodity supply and marketing firm” with offices in New York, Madrid and Miami.Seth had other interests. He operated several UPS shipping outlets in New York during the 2010s but got tied up in disputes with landlords that resulted in judgments for unpaid bills of more than $300,000, according to legal filings.In 2025, Seth and De Borbón founded Blue Acquisition Corp. as a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, targeting data centers and AI. Wesley Clark, the former four-star US Army general, became Blue’s chairman.The firm, which lists Seth’s house in Newport Beach as its headquarters, raised about $200 million last June through an initial public offering and forged ahead with a deal to acquire a data center in Niagara Falls.BTIG, the investment bank that’s being taken over by US Bancorp, helped arrange the IPO while some of Wall Street’s biggest hedge funds, including Sona Asset Management and LMR Partners, are among the firm’s largest shareholders today, Bloomberg data show. Representatives of BTIG, Sona and LMR all declined to comment for this story.Blue isn’t named by investigators or accused of any wrongdoing. Seth resigned from the company on June 9 for what the firm described as “family reasons,” according to a regulatory filing. Blue’s current CEO, David Bauer, told Bloomberg that Seth is “no longer affiliated” with the company in any capacity. De Borbón served as a special adviser to Blue and the role terminated in February, Bauer said by email.“We are at that point where you just mention AI and data centers and everyone wants in,” said Matt Tuttle, who oversees $5.3 billion as CEO of Riverside, Connecticut-based Tuttle Capital Management. “I’ve seen some strange stuff in SPAC world but this is a first for me.”‘Grey Zone’