Operacion Galgo comes to an end in Spain

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Operacion Galgo, or “Operation Greyhound,” the Spanish investigation into an alleged blood doping ring involving Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes has been closed due to “a lack of evidence.”

In an order dated May 24 and released on Wednesday, Judge Mercedes Perez dismissed the charges against the twelve defendants. The Madrid Provincial Court had already ruled in March that the telephone interceptions and searches carried out as part of the probe were invalid.

“There are no reasonable grounds for having committed the acts which gave rise to the formation of this case,” Perez wrote in his dismissal of the proceedings, according to AFP.

Operacion Galgo first entered the public domain in December 2010, when Spanish police arrested 14 people, including Fuentes, his sister Yolanda and the middle-distance runner Marta Dominguez.

Fuentes was previously at the centre of the Operacion Puerto blood doping investigation, which broke ahead of the 2006 Tour de France and eventually led to sanctions against a number of riders, including Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Michele Scarponi and Alejandro Valverde.

In late 2011, it emerged that Fuentes and former ONCE manager Manolo Saiz would be among six people to stand trial for their part in Operacion Puerto. A date for the hearing has yet to be fixed, although details of the written statements presented to the Madrid court were leaked by El Pais in March.