Operation Greyhound suspect Alberto León found hanged

The family of Alberto León, one of the 14 suspects arrested in the Civil Guard's Operation Greyhound against doping in Spanish track & field, was found hanged in his El Escorial home on Monday, police have confirmed.

León, who was also implicated in the 2006 Operation Puerto investigation into doping in cycling, was married with two children. Sources close to León's family said that after his arrest last December 9 his wife had demanded a separation. León, a former professional mountain bike racer, was caught by the Civil Guard in the process of giving a blood transfusion to Alemayehu Bezabeh, an Ethiopia-born Spanish cross-country European champion. Also arrested in the Civil Guard raids were 3,000m steeplechase world champion Marta Domínguez, Spanish track & field trainer Manuel Pascua and Eufemiano Fuentes, a sports medic at the center of both Operation Puerto and Greyhound.

León was also named as a suspect in the Puerto case, still to come to court

León was named as a suspect in the Puerto case, which has yet to come to court.

As a sportsman, though, León was a pioneer of mountain biking in Spain. Toward the end of the 1990s and during the beginning of the 2000s, he was a member of the Coronas-BH team, the greatest professional mountain bike team Spain has produced, and noted for his bravery and fine technique.

As a suspected member of the doping rings broken up by the Civil Guard, León's role was, according to agents involved in the investigations, extremely varied. In Operation Puerto he was principally responsible for cleaning up and maintaining the machinery needed to perform transfusions and also helped to carry them out. According to investigation documents, though, his responsibility was allegedly greater than that. León was the courier, transporting blood bags to athletes at competitions and making transfusions to boost red blood cell content. His visits to Bezabeh were made alone, to the extent that the runner thought León was certified and called him "The Doctor."

His name reappeared during Operation Greyhound and his involvement had apparently become greater, according to the surveillance carried out by investigators of the Civil Guard's Central Operative Unit, which show that León had allegedly become Fuentes' right-hand man in Madrid. From his El Escorial home, near the capital, León and Pascua coordinated the network of transfusions to the athletes under their guidance.

The job had been complicated in some way, with Fuentes no longer able to lay his hands on the machines and installations necessary to keep bags of blood at a temperature of four degrees Celsius. In order to make this task easier and to be able to carry out the work with greater discretion, Pascua told investigators that he had given the keys to his house in Valdemorillo, outside Madrid, to León.

Pascua also attributed the discovery of four empty blood bags and transfusion apparatus with traces of blood on them by the Civil Guard in his Valdemorillo home to a moment of neglectfulness on León's part.

In one of the telephone conversations recorded by investigators, León is heard telling Fuentes that he had discovered he was being followed by the Civil Guard. Fuentes replied that León should be careful and that his overconfidence during Operation Puerto had led in part to the ring's unraveling.

Among the evidence the Civil Guard collated against León during the Operation Greyhound investigation was a meeting between athletes and Yolanda Fuentes, Eufemiano's sister, during which she haggled over the amounts of money athletes should pay León for the transfusions.

In one of the final taped telephone conversations between Fuentes and Pascua, at the end of October, Fuentes is heard planning for the 2011 season with Pascua. Fuentes stated that in February everything would be in place for the criminal enterprise to start in earnest for the coming season and that if Pascua had lost faith in León, a substitute could be sought.