By Julen Sordo
01:48 p.m May 28, 1998 Eastern
BILBAO, Spain, May 28 (Reuters) - Spanish police arrested 10 people with apparent links to a group that financed fugitive members of the Basque guerrilla group ETA in several countries including Cuba, officials said on Thursday.
Spain's Interior Ministry said police arrested nine people in a series of early morning raids around the Basque city of Bilbao and detained a 10th person on Thursday afternoon in the Spanish seaside resort of Benidorm.
Police also seized enough documents to fill three trucks during the early raids in Bilbao, Interior Ministry officials said.
``The national police force has dismantled part of the financing framework which helps out ETA fugitives and has arrested a total of 10 people,'' an Interior Ministry spokeswoman said.
ETA, which stands for Basque Homeland and Freedom, has been held responsible for killing more than 800 people in its 30-year fight for an independent state.
The Interior Ministry said those arrested were believed to be part of an umbrella organisation that helped fund activities of ETA members who had fled the country.
``The police believe that top ETA leaders designed this financial structure to help with the financial upkeep of members of the terrorist group who had fled to various countries, especially in Latin America, and who would then be able to get involved in terrorist activity in Spain,'' it said in a statement.
The activities of those arrested were apparently related to various companies with links to ETA, it said.
The statement said one of the main companies believed to be involved was a fish import-export business that had dealings in Cuba and other countries in Central and South America.
Suspected former ETA financier Carlos Ibarguren used to be the representative of the company in Cuba, it said.
Ibarguren -- known by his nickname ``Nervios'' (highly strung) -- was detained in France last year and is wanted in Spain on suspicion of extorting so-called ``revolutionary taxes'' from businesses.
Interior Minister Jaime Mayor Oreja praised Thursday's sting operation, which involved around 200 police and was the culmination of a year-long investigation, as an important step in the fight against ETA.
``We are probably facing one of the biggest unresolved issues that we have in the fight against terrorism and the fight against ETA -- that is its financing,'' Mayor Oreja told state radio from Brussels.
Thursday's raids follow a series of government successes in a crackdown on ETA.
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