Woman 'most wanted' by Europol arrested in Spain

Spain's Catalan regional police force have arrested Maria Tana Varela Otero, the woman most wanted by the European Police Office.

Varela, 44, who is from the region of Galicia in the northwest of Spain, was detained on Monday in Villanova I la Geltru, a coastal town 30 km from Barcelona, Xinhua news agency reported.

She is 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 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.

--IANS

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