We have sources who tip us off -2 thousand cannabis plants

2 thousand cannabis plants have been seized following drug raids on plastic greenhouses (invernaderos). Police found 664 plants during a raid on an invernadero, which are normally used to grow fruit and vegetables for northern Europe, near Albuñol . The plastic drugs bust followed a raid on a greenhouse nearby, when civil guards found 560 plants.In total, four marijuana factories on the Granada coast have been found under plastic since the middle of August. Explaining the increase in the number of drug raids on invernaderos, a police spokesman said: “We have sources who tip us off. We can then locate the greenhouse and their owners. However,...

Read More

Home Invasion the Christmas buzzword

Home invaders in Spain understand the isolation poor infrastructure and lack of police presence they also know know that they won't have to overcome alarm systems when the home is occupied or be worried about video cameras and silent alarms. Unlike robbing a retail store, home invaders expect privacy once inside your home and won’t have to deal with the police suddenly driving up or customers walking in. Once the offenders take control of a residence...

Read More

Homejacking hits Christmas on the Costas

Homejacking is on the rise.This is the residential form of an automobile carjacking and it's on the rise. Like the crime of carjacking, most police agencies don’t track home invasions as a separate crime. Home invasion robbers work more often at night and on weekends when homes are more likely to be occupied. The home invader will sometimes target the resident as well as the dwelling. The selection process may include a woman living alone, a wealthy...

Read More

loans were taken out for car purchase, and were based on false documentation relating to income and employment. The loan repayments were never made.

The National Police Fraud Squad in Málaga has broken up an organised group of criminals who are believed to have defrauded more than 150,000 € by taking out fraudulent bank loans.The gang used false documentation to take out loans for car purchase but never made the repayments.Twelve vehicles have so far been detected as being bought in this way.Twelve people have been taken into custody: eight Spaniards, three Romanian nationals and a woman from...

Read More

seaside resort cities of Lloret de Mar and Benidorm

agents identified several websites in the U-S that allowed access to child pornography files in exchange for payments of between $70 and $95. The trail led to the seaside resort cities of Lloret de Mar and Benidorm where police detected, then arrested, four Russian nationals. Subsequent probes then led to the arrest of 59 people during the past 10 da...

Read More

shot in the centre of Marbella

A foreigner has died overnight after being shot in the centre of Marbella by two people who managed to make their escape from the scene.EFE news agency quotes police sources who say it happened at 10pm close to Calle Camilo José Cela and that the two people who carried out the attack passed on a moped.The victim is reported to have been shot several times in the ba...

Read More

remains are said to be of a white man in his forties

The Civil Guard are coming closer to solving the mystery of a chopped up body which was found buried in plastic bags in a field in Ceutí on Saturday, and have now, according to a report in La Verdad newspaper on Tuesday, managed to lift fingerprints off the mummified remains. The remains are said to be of a white man in his forties, who was murdered elsewhere before his body was chopped up and buried at a depth of one metre.There is also evidence that the victim’s body was kept in a freezer for some time prior to being buried.The gruesome contents of the plastic bags were discovered by a farmer who was turning over his land, and appear to have...

Read More

Lorcrimar Hotel

The Andalucian Supreme Court of Justice has ordered Marbella Town Hall to revise the licence given for the Lorcrimar Hotel in town by Julián Muñoz in 2003, against the planning legislation.The court is in agreement with the Junta de Andalucía which says that the Town Hall has the obligation to revise all the illegal licences. Last July 31st the Partido Popular controlled Town Hall passed a motion not to revise any more licenc...

Read More

Ghosts of the 80s

A trawler fishing off the coast of Altea brought up a rather unexpected catch in its nets on Wednesday: a human skull, and bones from the thorax, which were brought up from a depth of between 60 and 70 metres. The find has been handed over to the Civil Guard, who have started an investigation to try and identify the remains.The President of the local Fishermen’s Guild, Antonio Lloret, spoke to the EFE news agency of an opening which could be seen in the back of the skull, as if, he said, it were made by a bullet.Another trawler found a human hand and a leather jacket in its nets earlier this week, in the same ar...

Read More

two performers had live sex on a stage in front of dignitaries

A comic fair in Spain erupted into scandal after two performers had live sex on a stage in front of dignitaries, according to reports. Local authorities in the southern Spanish town of Granada threatened to withdraw funding from the International Comic Fair, reports the Guardian and El Pais newspapers. Organisers "decided to enliven an awards ceremony" for comic books last Friday, reports the Guardian, by paying two actors to have sex on stage. During the performance actors stormed the stage dressed as burka-clad women and Taleban fighters led by an Osama bin Laden lookalike, according to El Pais. They burned pictures of icons, including the...

Read More

Spain is going to be bigger than Jamaica or Holland as a cannabis growing

"The Spanish sun is free, and the climate in some parts of the country is good for growing cannabis 10 months a year, but we see indoor growing as superior because it offers a controlled environment, and avoids the possibility of rip-offs and problems with insects and lack of water," Molina said. "Growers can combine indoor and outdoor growing, using their indoor gardens during cool weather, and also getting a head start on making plants for transplanting...

Read More

home of Antonio Banderas

The home of Antonio Banderas in Marbella will have to be demolished because it has been judged to be illeg...

Read More

Insider View translated from the Spanish

Marbella, a beach resort for the "jet set" now emerging as the hub for every mafia connection in Spain. Finally, there is a Swiss connection in the form of the Cultrera-Meninno scandal, which only leads back to Marbella, a beach resort for the "jet set" now emerging as the hub for every Mafia connection in Spain. Felice Cultrera and Gianni Meninno are under investigation in Geneva for fraud and money laundering. Felice Cultrera and Gianni Meninno...

Read More

The Prince of Marbella, Monzer Al Kassar arrested this morning at the airport in Madrid was taken at 10.30 hours

The National Police announced Friday the arrest in Madrid of Syrian arms dealer Monzer Al Kassar by several charges related to terrorism issued by an American court. Al Kassar is sought on charges of conspiracy to provide support and material resources to a terrorist organization, to kill Americans, to use and acquire anti-aircraft missiles, and money laundering, police said in a statement. Al Kassar has long resided in Spain and has been nicknamed...

Read More

Gil's town plans had not been approved by the Junta de Andalucia

The Marbella Land Registry gives information on ownership of the Land, but not on its planning. It can detail the house that is built as being physically there, but and that it has licences. It is stated that the registry givew the information supplied to it, but it is not a guarantee that it is accurate. This is especially the case with regard to the property description and the price paid. However, professionals, including Notaries and lawyers,...

Read More

Spanish singer Isabel Pantoja has described herself as a victim linked to the Malaya corruption case. For the past three years she has been in a relationship with Julián Muñoz, who was Mayor of Marbella at the time they got together. Speaking in a statement sent to Antena Tres television, she claimed she felt tricked if the published news that Muñoz has been sending large amounts of money to his ex wife Mayte Zaldiver turns out to be true. ‘He told...

Read More

The Andalucian Ombudsman

The Andalucian Ombudsman, José Chamizo, has also supported the demolition of 334 homes in a total of seven developments in Marbella whose licences were annulled by the Andalucian Supreme Court. He said that what justice ordered had to be carried out, however lamentable it was for the owners of the buildings. He said each owner should be looked at on an individual basis to see if they had been tricked into making the purchase, adding that the judiciary should study the alternatives and take the rights of the owners into accou...

Read More

affect expatriates who are used to buying drugs in Spain

The New law, which in some areas has been brought into force early, will affect expatriates who are used to buying drugs in Spain rather than having to face a Spanish speaking doctor. Many doctors in Spain insist on translators who can charge more than a private doctor.The legislation is to prevent the over use of medicines and health products, guard against inappropriate use, monitor and control given medical prescriptionsIt is hoped that greater regulation will create higher quality pharmacists and allow the government to monitor medicines more effectively. The law also provides disease control mechanisms which could cope to restrain outbreaks...

Read More

Property Crash

The dive was precipitated last week when Valencian builder Astroc’s shares fell by 62 per cent after planning laws were changed. Since then panic has spread causing the Madrid Bourse (Spain’s Stock Exchange) to topple. Manuel Romera, Director of Madrid’s Institute of Industry said, “I can see a mortgage crisis building. We have a serious property bubble in this country and everyone is in denial; it’s worse than the US”. Dismay has also set into the banks that have been key investors in the market. The banks have been buoying the market by granting easy access to mortgages and loans. Both Banco Sabadell and BankInter both lost 5 percent of their...

Read More

Dozens of stars from the worlds of sport, music and TV

Dozens of stars from the worlds of sport, music and TV are choosing the elegant Spanish resort as their number one holiday choice.And many have dabbled in the booming Andalucian property market and bought second homes there.Marbella and nearby Puerto Banus are favourites with the rich and famous because they boast fine restaurants, exclusive bars and shops full of designer clothes.David and Victoria Beckham chose the resort's exclusive five-star Marbella Club hotel for a relaxing break when Posh was pregnant with Brooklyn.And more recently comedian Frank ''Foo Foo'' Lamarr and Coronation Street actress Liz Dawn, who plays Vera Duckworth, have...

Read More

Allan James Foster, 31

POLICE are appealing to expats and holidaymakers in Spain to help trace a man wanted for murder. Originally from South Shields, Allan James Foster, 31, is known to have spent time in Majorca and the Canary Islands. It is believed he may now be living somewhere on the Costas. Foster, who sometimes uses the name Sean Wilkinson, is 5’8” tall and has a mole on the left side of his fa...

Read More

26-year-old British dealer was recently arrested near Marbella with false passports

39 British-organised crime syndicates on the Costa del Sol have been identified as being involved in major drugs supply. A 26-year-old British dealer was recently arrested near Marbella with false passports, eight mobile phones and a British-registered Mitsubishi 4...

Read More

links between Ibiza and the Costa del Sol

Soca officers confirmed that they have intensified their scrutiny of the links between Ibiza and the Costa del Sol, from where some of Britain's most wanted drug barons run their empires. Co-operation with Spain's Special Central Unit for Locating Fugitives (UCLF) has recently been stepped up. At least six suspected major British criminals have been arrested in the province of Malaga, including Brian Wright, who is alleged to have smuggled £300m of cocaine into Britain.Among those understood to be wanted in connection with San Antonio's drug supply is Mickey Green, ...

Read More

Answer Phone in English

This service is not available in all areas and cannot be used on all telephones to check if you can use this service in your area and with your phone you must first activate the service. Pick up your receiver and press * 10 # replace your receiver. Your answeringmachine (if available) should now be activated. To check this pick up your receiver and wait about 5-10 seconds. If the service has been activated you should hear a lady speaking (in Spanish of course) this means that the service is available to you if not ring telefonica on 1004.TO CHANGE THE LANGUAGEPick up the receiver and wait 5-10seconds until the lady stops speaking………………………………………….press...

Read More

mobile phones while driving

16 policemen in Marbella and San Pedro Alcantara will be on the look out for people who use their mobile phones while driving. This forms part of a national campaign which aims at reducing the number of accidents caused by distracted drivers. Talking while driving carries a fine of 150 euros and the loss of three poin...

Read More

combat violence in the classroom

the National Police and the Guardia Civil will be making their presence felt in schools around Malaga province in an effort to combat violence in the classroom. They plan to give a series of talks to get the message across that bullying fellow students and attacking teachers will be punished, even though perpetrators are under age. In a recent case, a judge split up a group of three bullies, sending them to different schools in Malaga city. The security forces will also warn students of the dangers posed by the Internet, and be on the look out for drug dealers inside and outside the schoo...

Read More

garbage bags full of what she liked most: money

the former wife of ex-mayor Julian Muñoz, has now been jailed. Insiders have stated that ever since Jesus Gil y Gil became mayor of the town, Miss Zaldivar regularly used to receive garbage bags full of what she liked most: money – to the tune of somewhere in the region of seven hundred million Pesetas, or about £3.5 million. As she used to brag about how much these garbage bags were giving her, she has now been placed in jail by Judge Miguel Angel Torres, who is now planning to hear her testimony before taking any further action. All in all, since last March when the investigation first started, some seventy people have been placed in jail as...

Read More

Paul Durant had initially told an English tabloid newspaper that he had eaten his victim after hacking up her corpse.

A British citizen accused of killing and quartering his girlfriend three years ago in Calpe, Alicante, admitted yesterday in court that he had murdered her but said he did not get rid of the body. Paul Durant had initially told an English tabloid newspaper that he had eaten his victim after hacking up her corpse.This is the first time since 1983 that a person has been put on trial for murder without a corpse being found.Paul D. told the judge in Alicante that in February 2004 he killed Karen Durell, a 41-year-old British mother of two who had moved to the resort of Calpe a few months earlier. But he said that after the murder, he left the body...

Read More

Janette May Grocutt, was stabbed to death last Friday by a gang of burglars

A 74 year old British woman, identified by the Foreign Office as Janette May Grocutt, was stabbed to death last Friday by a gang of burglars during a break-in at the home she shared with her bed-ridden husband, Douglas, who was not attacked, but who is now being treated in hospital for stress. The results of the autopsy will confirm suspicions that Mrs Grocutt was killed when she bravely tried to fight off the gang. It seems that the couple moved to Spain from Cornwall around six years ago, and ran a campsite. Mrs Grucott's body was found by a close friend of the family last Friday evening at the couple's home, which is located on a small independent...

Read More

Puente Romano and the Marbella Club

The Marbella judge responsible for the Hidalgo money laundering case, Manuel Martín Hernández-Carrillo, has interviewed another five suspects, among them two directors of Marbella’s main hotel group. They are all accused of money laundering and tax fraud, pointed out court sources at the end of last week.Among the five who appeared before the judge last week were the finance director of the group that owns both the Puente Romano and the Marbella Club, the manager of one of these two hotels, a tax consultant connected with the group and a former public notary, explained the same sources. The fifth new Hidalgo suspect is the lawyer Juan Germán...

Read More

Europe's wunderkind

In the late 1980s, Spain had become Europe's wunderkind: its foreign investment ballooned, its 4% cumulative annual growth was the Continent's highest and, with the help of European Community subsidies, it built $30 billion worth of highways and other public works. No longer did Spaniards have to emigrate north for jobs: their income rose to 79% of the E.C. median. Culturally, Spain became fashionable: the campy fantasies of filmmaker Pedro Almodovar; the sunswept abstractions of painter Miguel Barcelo; the postmodern extravaganzas of architect Ricardo Bofill; the prankish sexiness of fashion designer Sybilla. Madrid promoted itself as the eye...

Read More

four year prison sentence handed down to the owner of a bar and restaurant which was causing excessive noise

The sentence issued by the Barcelona Provincial Court has now been confirmed by the Supreme Court in SpainThe Supreme Court has confirmed a four year prison sentence handed down to the owner of a bar and restaurant which was causing excessive noise in an area of Barcelona. The high court found the establishment lacking measures demanded by law, and guilty of a crime against natural resources and the environment.The owner will also have to compensate four neighbours with amounts of between 6,000 € and 10,000 €. The Supreme Court thus supports the ruling from the Provincial Court in Barcelo...

Read More

Benalmádena Town Hall will have to compensate a local Dutch family for the noise coming from the Puerto Marina.

The couple have been awarded more than 15,000 € for the noise from bars in the port, which dates back some eight yearsThe case dates back to 1999, but the sentence has only just been announced, ordering the council to pay 15,175€.The Dutch couple purchased a flat in the Marina, with the intention of enjoying the summer there and renting the flat out for the rest of the year, but they say they had to soundproof their home and return the rent to ten people after three pubs opened below them.Eight years after making their complaint to the courts in Málaga, they have now been told they have won the case. The 15,000 € goes to cover the soundproofing...

Read More

The British on the Costa Del Sol

As the first major ethnographic study of British migrants in Spain, The British on the Costa Del Sol is to be welcomed for the light it sheds on an important but hitherto poorly researched subject. It is a valuable addition to the literature on ethnicity and European migration, as well as on tourism in its mass and long-stay forms. As a pleasant bonus, it also happens to be a very enjoyable re...

Read More

They insist that their lives in Spain are good and that no one ever wants to go home, while individuals are choosing to go home every day.

They don't integrate, yet say they do, or that their children do. They construct and reconstruct strong community boundaries yet talk of community as if it includes the Spanish as well as other nationalities. They deny their isolation. They live fun and leisured lives, often denying or understating the work that goes into the construction of community. They insist that their lives in Spain are good and that no one ever wants to go home, while individuals are choosing to go home every day. They deny their boredom and suppress their loneliness as this contradicts the image they wish to portray of a happy, friendly and exciting experienc...

Read More

"Prince of Marbella" because of his opulent lifestyle

Spanish court authorized Friday the extradition of Syrian arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar to the United States on charges of conspiring to provide weapons to Colombian guerrillas. US authorities say Kassar agreed to sell machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, millions of rounds of ammunition and surface-to-air missile systems to the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) between 2006 and May of this year. Prosecutors in New York have charged him with conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a terrorist organization, money laundering, and conspiracy to acquire an anti-aircraft missile and to kill US nationals....

Read More

Disco Inferno, is the 70's / 80's bar

Disco Inferno, is the 70's / 80's bar, in my opinion its one of the best places to go in the port as it is the least pretencious.Must also mention that Sean Connery does not have a yacht in the port, this one of Marbella's oldest tales......All of the large yachts are Arab owed and derive from oil money, simple as that!Also, if you do happen to want to watch any sports whilst your staying, I recommend a bar called Bar Cheers, it became my Spanish local (no lager louts) its between Puerto Banus and San Pedro (only 5€ taxi from Puerto Ban...

Read More

Best Bars in Puerto Banus

Best Bars in Puerto BanusFor hotties & beautiful people Sinatras Bar in Puerto Banus - small bar, gud funky music2 bars either side of Sinatras which are full of our age group - also very gud...Linkers is a fun bar but younger and is located the street behind Sinatras...a small skinny cobbled stoned street full of bars, mini clubs and pizza take outs etc....parisien feel to this street actually!Glam is the name of a good nite club, its big with a price tag of 20euros admission (includes 1 drink), at main Roundabout beside taxi rank - open til 6amOlivia Valiere is my favourite night club- bit like American spirit however its 60euros admission...

Read More

radars installed in helicopters

Those little devices that warn drivers they are approaching speed radars will soon be made obsolete when the Traffic Authority implements its new method of hunting down speed hogs - by radars installed in helicopters. And Malaga will be one of the first provinces to get the service. The helicopters can nail cars with accuracy from a height of 300 metres and at a distance of one kilomet...

Read More

massages on the town’s beaches

In a joint operation, the National and Local Police in Marbella arrested 17 Chineses nationals last week for giving massages on the town’s beaches without the necessary licences. Two of them were illegally in the country and are in the process of being expelled. The other 15 have their papers in order and were released without charges. A Town Hall spokesman said the operation formed part of this year’s Beach Safety Plan and warned people they were putting their health at risk when they accepted the services of the beach “masseur...

Read More

el camino de los ingleses

Antonio Banderas made a film a few months ago called “El Camino de los Ingleses”, the Englishmen’s road. Many people must have wondered about this “road”, which does exist. It all started when George William Grice-Hutchinson, a London lawyer, bought a finca in the Churriana area in 1926. He was very kind to the local people who worked for him, as a well as those who didn’t. When the Civil War broke out in 1936, Grice-Hutchinson helped 80 people escape the wrath of the Republican militia in Malaga, taking them on his yacht Honey Bee to Gibraltar. After Franco’s troops took the area, Grice-Hutchinson then helped many Republicans to escape. After...

Read More

drug trafficking is a major issue in Cádiz

police figures indicating that 77 per cent of all hashish seized in Spain is confiscated in the province of Andulcia, has called upon the Government to carry out a major campaign against drug trafficking. The provincial government agrees that drug trafficking is a major issue in Cádiz and in Andalucía as a whole, and indicates that it is already utilising multiple resources to combat the probl...

Read More

Illegal betting on the Costa del Sol bars uncovered in a National Police operation

Illegal betting on the Costa del Sol bars uncovered in a National Police operation news date: Monday, April 02, 2007National Police officers from the eight Andalusian provinces have broken up an illegal betting network which was operating in bars on the Costa del Sol run by British citizens.Around 30 people are implicated and they could face fines of between 30,000 and 300,000 euros.Police discovered that illegal betting was taking place in seven bars: four in Benalmadena, two in Fuengirola and one in Torremolin...

Read More

UK Citizen

who has not been named for legal reasons, who stood accused of murdering a married couple of the same nationality, with whom he lived in Mijas, has been found guilty by the jury. The slaying took place on March 18, 2005 at the couple’s house in Mijas. The events happened after an argument between the three. First the wife was killed in the home then the husband fled as far as the road where he was stabbed to death. Investigators found 68 stab wounds on his body. The accused man then allegedly set fire to the house, which was completely destroyed, in an attempt to hide evidence. The woman’s body was so badly burned it was only identified after...

Read More

Nearly a third of all crimes committed in the province of Málaga last year occurred during July, August and September

Nearly a third of all crimes committed in the province of Málaga last year occurred during July, August and September, according to data from Spain's Home Office. As populations boom in Benalmádena (80,000 in winter to 160,000 in summer), Torremolinos (52,000 to 300,000), Marbella (110,000 to 500,000) and Vélez-Málaga (45,000 to 200,000), criminals are attracted to the relatively easy targets posed by tourists in town for a little fun in the s...

Read More

The notorious Nazi sympathiser, Gerd Honsik,

The notorious Nazi sympathiser, Gerd Honsik, was arrested in Málaga yesterday on an international arrest warrant issued in Austria. Honsik was sentenced to serve eighteen months in jail by a Vienna court in 1992 for repeatedly denying the holocaust and that the Third Reich used gas chambers to exterminate the Jewish people. He never served this sentence after escaping to Spain where he set up home. The opinions were expressed between 1986 and 1989 in his book 'The Absolution of Hitler', and in the 'Halt' magazine in which he stated that: "there is absolutely no evidence of the existence of gas chambers" and "the chimney of the supposed Auschwitz...

Read More

A man was arrested in Torremolinos yesterday after attacking his girlfriend and her 21 year old daughter with an axe.

A man was arrested in Torremolinos yesterday after attacking his girlfriend and her 21 year old daughter with an axe. The incident occurred at an address in the El Calvario district at around 11.30am. The elder of the two women sustained serious neck wounds while her daughter is in a critical condition following surgery. Both women were taken to University Clinic Hospital in Mál...

Read More

Long-time Spanish resident Monzer al-Kassar

A Syrian businessman wanted in the US on charges of conspiring to provide weapons to Marxist guerillas in Colombia challenged his extradition request Thursday in a Spanish court. Long-time Spanish resident Monzer al-Kassar has been in jail since he was arrested in June as he arrived at Madrid airport on an internal flight. New York prosecutors have charged him with conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, money laundering and conspiracy to acquire an anti-aircraft missile and kill US nationals. They say rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, wanted to use the weapons he supplied...

Read More

The hunt is on for a large black panther spotted by a member of the public in a park near the Los Claveles residential estate in La Cala de Mijas at a

The hunt is on for a large black panther spotted by a member of the public in a park near the Los Claveles residential estate in La Cala de Mijas at around 7pm last night. Since then, three other people have corroborated the sighting. Suggestions that the animal was a large dog were ruled out after the man, who managed to photograph it on his mobile phone, told how he saw it climb a tree. Several Guardia Civil environmental officers armed with tranquiliser guns were deployed to hunt down the animal, but the search was called off for safety reasons at nightfall. A Guardia Civil spokesman said that the animal probably escaped from a private pr...

Read More

"In Franco's day, you'd already be dead, you commie poofter."

A corporal who was denied permission to take the regulation fifteen-day leave of absence to marry his transsexual sweetheart was told by his commanding officer, a Spanish Navy captain: "In Franco's day, you'd already be dead, you commie poofter." The corporal, who is seeking political support for his request for a transfer away from the El Ferrol navy base, was subsequently demoted and subjected to continual bullying. He is currently off work suffering from depression and is receiving psychological counselli...

Read More

Trawler nets grisly catch

The crew of a fishing vessel based in Carboneras found a badly decomposed corpse in their nets as they were fishing in waters off San José (Níjar, Almería) last Monday lunchtime. The crew advised the Guardia Civil, who have confirmed that the dead man, who has not yet been identified, was wearing tracksuit bottoms, a blue shirt and a jers...

Read More

THE N-340 ROAD BETWEEN MÁLAGA CITY AND MARBELLA ACCOUNTS FOR MORE DEATHS THAN ANY OTHER SECTION OF ROAD IN THE PROVINCE OF MÁLAGA.

Between 1989 and 2001, road deaths in Málaga Province have almost halved from 228 to 117, but mortality figures for the first four months of this year are showing a worrying increase.Last year, Málaga urban roads and ring road accounted for 21 deaths; Marbella counted 21 fatalities. The N-340 between the two towns recorded another nine deaths with Torremolinos (4), Benalmádena (3) and Fuengirola (2). Estepona reported nine road deaths and Manilva two. The area from Málaga to Manilva totalled 62 of the province's 117 road deat...

Read More

Mr Checa making Torredonjimeno the laughing stock of Spain

In Regina’s bar in the main square of Torredonjimeno on Thursday night, Rafael Sanchez, a farm worker, clutched his glass of beer with white knuckles.I am not going home. They can’t make me. This town has gone totally silly, he said defiantly.It was the first night of a new regime in which the town’s mayor, Javier Checa, has banned men from going out on Thursday evenings. All men found out of their houses between 9pm and 2am on a Thursday will be fined five euros.Mr Checa said the new policy was designed to free women of domestic shackles and to raise people’s awareness of sexual equality, but the scheme has bitterly divided the town. He expects...

Read More

Timothy O’Toole and James Carabini were arrested in Marbella and Ian Davenport was detained up the coast in Frigiliana, near Nerja.

The tobacco smugglers who made their money in Galicia, in northwest Spain, now realise that there are far more generous profits in handling cocaine shipments from Colombia and have formed alliances with foreign gangs. Spanish police and British customs officers allege that this is precisely what the latest three British detainees were up to. Timothy O’Toole and James Carabini were arrested in Marbella and Ian Davenport was detained up the coast in Frigiliana, near Ner...

Read More

Richard Monteith, 50, from Whitley Bay, is to plead guilty to murder.

Richard Monteith, 50, from Whitley Bay, is to plead guilty to murder. Spanish police have charged Monteith and his wife Anne-Marie, with the murder of 63-year-old Diana Dyson, from Sheffield. But according to Stephen Jakobi, a director of Fair Trials Abroad, Monteith has confessed to the contract killing of Mrs Dyson in the Spanish resort of Torremolinos in March 2002. Richard Monteith is being held in Spain Mr Jakobi said Monteith told his Spanish lawyer he had been offered up to £30,000 to carry out the killing. He said the charity would still act for Monteith's 48-year-old wife as long as she maintained her innocence. Mr Jakobi said: "Some...

Read More

Almost crime free

Almost crime free, although Eastern Europeans are now featuring in crime reports for petty crime to drug dealing. Criminals, specially violent ones, severely punished and can made to pay damages to victims by Criminal Courts (no need to go civil). This is one reason why for crime is very low. In Andalucia (Costa del Sol), about 50% of jail inmates are foreigners and this is expected to increase when new States are in the EU. However, problems expected with new EU entrants countries are occurring. But this will be universal throughout the EU, and the Spanish police's hands are "not tied" with political correctn...

Read More

The 'British in Spain' achieved notoriety during the 1980s

The 'British in Spain' achieved notoriety during the 1980s. As a group they were stereotyped as being made up of exiled criminals, drunken hooligans and inward looking pensioners - unwelcome colonisers reconstructing their own insular 'little England'. The British on the Costa del Sol presents a more complex pictu...

Read More

armed Spanish police raided a cocaine-laden trawler

When armed Spanish police raided a cocaine-laden trawler on the high seas late last month, just one member of the smuggling gang was onboard. But police knew exactly where to look for the foreigners linked to the $400 million haul. The ringleaders, a Brit and two Irishmen, were arrested back on the Costa del Sol.If organized crime is a globalized business these days, then Spain could be its European headquarters. More than 60 percent of the cannabis that enters the continent, as well as half the cocaine, is believed to pass through Spanish territory. And for a concentration of villainy there's nowhere to beat the Costa del Sol, a sun seekers'...

Read More

CRIMINAL gangs are targeting British homeowners on the Spanish costas

CRIMINAL gangs are targeting British homeowners on the Spanish costas and using knockout gas to overpower their victims in exclusive resorts. A spate of robberies and the murder last weekend of Winston Mills, 67, who was shot dead in front of his wife at their villa near La Manga, have prompted many Britons to put their properties on the market. Some frightened residents block roads leading to their estate with sandbags every night and mount their own vigilante patrols at La Nucia, near Benidorm. Victims have told The Times how the gangs sprayed them with an aerosol of anaesthetic gas that rendered them unconscious. One vetern British consular...

Read More

Interpol estimated last year that the Spanish costas are home to 18,000 foreign criminals

ESCAPING JUSTICE# Spain’s extradition treaty with Britain collapsed in 1978. High-profile criminals found that they could easily disappear, even after the treaty was reinstated in 1985# The “Costa del Crime” earned its name in 1983 when the thieves behind the £6 million Security Express robbery were spotted leading luxurious lives on the Spanish coast# Interpol estimated last year that the Spanish costas are home to 18,000 foreign criminals of 70 nationalities, including the Russian mafia and armed gangs from Albania, Kosovo and the former Soviet republics# The civil guard in Málaga, the regional capital, has admitted lacking the resources to...

Read More

Costa Crims

...

Read More

Nazi war criminals

One of the most wanted Nazi war criminals may have fled the Costa Brava for another area of Spain or Denmark to escape an intense search by Spanish police.Investigators believe that Aribert Heim, a concentration camp doctor, now 91, who injected hundreds of prisoners with lethal cocktails at Mauthausen in Austria, may have already fled to the Costa del Sol, in southern Spain, or Denmark, according to local press reports.Spain's organised crime and fugitive units have conducted "dozens" of searches in the Costa Brava after receiving a tip from German police, the newspaper El Mundo reported. He is thought to have lived in the resort town of Roses...

Read More

Wilkins became persona non grata with the now suspicious British criminal fraternity in Spain.

Wilkins was also suspected of informing on Kenneth Noye, who went on the run after the 1996 M25 "road-rage" murder of Stephen Cameron. Noye stayed at Wilkins's villa. He was arrested shortly after he bought a villa near Cadiz and moved o...

Read More

Wilkins was spending a lot of his time on the Costa del Sol and neighbouring Gibraltar, organising frauds.

The remarkable tale begins in 1992 when Wilkins escaped from a low- security prison in East Anglia where he was serving 10 years for drugs smuggling. He emerged a few months later in southern Spain on the "Costa del Crime", where he was approached by one of the Yard's top undercover detectives to help set up the sting. The idea was that Wilkins, well-connected in the murky British expatriate underworld, would introduce cops posing as dodgy businessmen to major crime figures operating in Spain and Gibraltar. They would be lured into trusting their ill-gotten gains to a money- laundering scheme that was really a police "front". It was the beginning...

Read More

Michael “Danser” Ahern

Spain, the gateway for much of the drug traffic into Europe, has long been a prime destination for Irish drug dealersMichael “Danser” Ahern, was found dead last year in Portugal, shot five times in the head and frozen by his killers in order to dismember his body, prompting an investigation by police in Ireland, Portugal, Spain, the UK and the Netherlan...

Read More

A 43 year old British man, named as William Moy, was shot dead in the street in Marbella on Friday night.

The victim was shot five times outside ‘The Point’ – a club in Nueva Andalucia. He was dead on the arrival of the emergency services.The victim had a criminal record in the U.K. and is reported to have been linked to several crimes in Spain. Police currently have several theories about the motive and who could have been responsib...

Read More

"God of the Costa del Sol", the late playboy and Marbella mayor Jesús Gil y Gil.

It was supposed to epitomise luxury, prosperity and power. Instead, it became a symbol of the heady mix of excess and corruption which for too long was synonymous with Marbella, Spain's glittering city of fun.The Rolls-Royce Shining Spur was the pride and joy of the self-proclaimed "God of the Costa del Sol", the late playboy and Marbella mayor Jesús Gil y Gil.Gil thought nothing of demanding that his taxpayers fork out for the £170,000 car which transported him to every civic function, "like a Pharaoh" as locals put it. But now, three years after his death, his Rolls has – like his corrupt reign – lost its allure. The car will be put up for...

Read More

Sex is out in the open and men often go with prostitutes every night of the week

British mother and daughter Ingrid and Rachel O'Leary are both prostitutes on Spain's Costa del Sol. But neither feels their life of vice is sordid or risky - and they love the riches they've earned. 'We're more like sisters than mother and daughter,' says Surrey- born Ingrid, 43. 'We like hanging out together and we prefer it when we work as a pair. It's our choice to work in this game.' Her daughter Rachel, 26, explains, 'Our punters are just like everyone else out here. You get some nice ones, a lot of dull ones and a few bast*rds, but if we're together, there's less chance of any aggro.' Ingrid moved out to Estepona, near Marbella, two years...

Read More

Elvis seen in Puerto Banus

Elvis Presley is having a grand time. He is cuddling up to tipsy girls and giving them individual verses of Return to Sender as they blush, squeal and make half-hearted attempts to escape. "Hey, baby, what's your name?" he groans, and they automatically reply: Kelly, Alise, Leanne. Elvis is, of course, an impersonator, but a very fine one; if he weren't black, Portuguese and as skinny as a rake in his baggy white jumpsuit, he could almost pass for the real thing.Jesús Flores, owner of Ocean's 11, the Marbella bar where Elvis performs every Friday night, believes he's lucky to have him. "I couldn't do the bar without music. It wouldn't be as successful."...

Read More

In April 2005, he was arrested by police in Sotogrande, Spain and on April 2nd 2007 he was found guilty of running one of the most sophisticated and s

Brian Brendan "The Milkman" Wright is an Irish criminal involved in fixing horse races by doping more than 20 race horses in 1990 as well as a drug trafficker who is estimated to have smuggled 3 tons of cocaine into Great Britain over a period of two years. Originally based in Britain, he had been out of the country when authorities began arresting members of his organization (including his own son, Brian Jr and former son in law, Paul S) as the result of a six year investigation resulting from the capture a converted fishing trawler, the Sea Mist, after Irish customs officials discovered 599kg of cocaine while docked at Cork, Ireland in September...

Read More

Brian Brendan Wright, alias "The Milkman"

Spanish authorities announced that they had arrested one of the United Kingdom's most wanted criminals: Brian Brendan Wright, alias "The Milkman" in recognition that he always delivered.Wright fled British law after being linked to one of that country's biggest drug-smuggling operations, as well as horse race fixing. He was last seen over 10 years ago in Cypr...

Read More

flamboyant Chilean attorney Fernando del Valle Vergara. Del Valle

At the center of the investigation is the flamboyant Chilean attorney Fernando del Valle Vergara. Del Valle and 10 of his staff were originally arrested. Press reports have stated that Del Valle´s Marbella law firm is called DVA. That has led Madrid attorney, Javier del Valle Sánchez - no relation to the Fernando del Valle - to issue a statement that his law firm 'Del Valle Abogados S.L.', and which also uses the letters DVA, has no relation to the firm in Marbella.Fernando del Valle arrived on the Marbella real estate scene in the late 1970s - early 1980s, after a brief stint practicing law in Madrid. In the coming years Del Valle, an aficionado...

Read More

It was no secret that something wicked was scratching at the underbelly of Spain's Costa del Sol.

The sunny southern stretch of beaches branded "the Coast of Crime" is a hedonist's paradise. It is the summer residence of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, and place where jet setters and "beautiful people" arrive by the scores, its harbors brim with yachts and buckets of cash exchange hands. It has also been an open secret that in the regional capital of Marbella much of that money comes from the seedy-side of life, linked to speculating in real estate, or dirtier crimes, such as extortion, contract murders, car-thefts, arms and drugs trafficking and prostitution. It is suspected that much of those ill-gotten gains were sent to offshore accounts. Once...

Read More

THE 42-YEAR-OLD ITALIAN WHO WAS ASSASSINATED LAST WEEK IN MARBELLA HAD BEEN DEPORTED FROM SPAIN TO ITALY IN 2002 TO FACE DRUG CHARGES AND WAS DUE TO A

These details were released by the government’s sub-delegate in Málaga, Hilario López Luna, after the man, Vincenzo M., died from his injuries in the intensive care unit of Marbella’s Costa del Sol hospital. He had received a single shot to the head while walking in the area between the Playa Esmeralda and Coral Beach urbanizations about one kilometre from Puerto Banús.A man on a red motorcycle had driven up to the Italian, stopped his bike and then, without any exchange of words, fired the single shot in to his head. The killer then raced off, heading in the direction of Marbella.Sr López Luna stated that police believe the killing was another...

Read More

MOUSE OVER FOR TIT...

Read More

In the few seconds it takes to pump half a dozen bullets into someone from point-blank range

It was a busy Friday evening at The Point, a bar in the southern Spanish resort of Marbella, as the mainly British clientele enjoyed the warm night air on a terrace overlooking a palm tree lined golf course.Among the drinkers was a regular known as Gerry, a popular 43-year-old Londoner who had been living around the British-dominated neighbourhood of Nueva Andalucía for some years.In the few seconds it takes to pump half a dozen bullets into someone from point-blank range, the calm of an idyllic Mediterranean evening was shattered. "There were several shots and everybody just hit the ground," said one person who was in The Point that nightBy...

Read More

Spanish police, carted the corpses of four executed British and Irish crooks off to morgues in July

Spanish police, carted the corpses of four executed British and Irish crooks off to morgues in July alone, are keeping tight-lipped. But they obviously fear the worst. Gerry's real name, it has turned out, was William Moy. "He was already known to us," Commissar Valentín Bahut, head of the police's organised crime unit in nearby Málaga, told the Guardian. "We had arrested him in 200...

Read More

British body count soars as the Costa killers turn up the heat

Spanish police see the recent drug gang shootings as a worrying sign of change in the expat commun...

Read More

Charlie Wilson,

the most powerful villain to emerge from the most notorious British crime of the twentieth century: the Great Train Robbery. Wilson's life story is one of greed, corruption and an eventual descent into a living hell when his rivals decided to wipe him off the face of the earth - with the tacit approval of Spanish, British and US drug enforcement agencies. Although he first made his name in the underworld at the time of the Great Train Robbery, it was during his reign as a drug emperor that Wilson's reputation as an all-powerful character capable of cold-blooded brutality on one hand and immense kindness on the other helped confirm his status...

Read More

killing one year ago of two prominent London gangland figures.

Detectives have made a fresh attempt to break the "wall of silence" surrounding the killing one year ago of two prominent London gangland figures. Tommy Hole, 57, and Joey "The Crow" Evans, 55, were shot as they watched football in an east London pub on 5 December 1999. The two masked gunmen fled on foot from the Beckton Arms in Canning Town and have never been caught. The shooting happened on a Sunday afternoon but police were surprised by the lack of witness...

Read More

drug dealer Scott Bradfield, from London, was murdered in October 2001.

drug dealer Scott Bradfield, from London, was murdered in October 2001. His limbs were found in a suitcase on wasteland near Torremolinos in December and his head and torso were discovered in another case near...

Read More

Pat the Rat

A FLAMBOYANT Scots gangster has been arrested after a police officer was shot on the Costa del Crime.Millionaire Pat McCadden, 52, is behind bars while Spanish police investigate the attempted murder of a fellow officer.McCadden, nicknamed Pat the Rat, and his family live in a stunning mansion in the upmarket Costa del Sol resort of Marbella after fleeing a £1million tax bill in Scotland.Yesterday, Spain's national police, the Cuerpo Nacional de Polic'a, refused to discuss the investigation into the rogue businessman turned drugs Mr B...

Read More

Tarifa Tales:A Londoner has been shot dead by five bullets

A Londoner has been shot dead by five bullets in a late night slaying close to The Point cafeteria in the Avenida del Prado in Nueva Andalucía, Marbella. According to police sources the 43-year-old had a police record in Spain. Officers are investigating his death and are keeping an open mind on the motive and who carried out the slaying. The Briton, named as William Moy, is said to have been accompanied by a group of three people before his death. The emergency services received a 091 call to say a man had been hurt in a shooting but when medical teams arrived he was already dead. The Point is in the Aloha urbanisation and the area was soon...

Read More

Fact or Fiction Tales of the 80s Buggy and the RaRa Girls

The sands of the Sahara seemed far away from this lush formal English garden set in three acres of Northumberland. Yet the gardeners mind drifted incessantly to the reds and orange of the barren desert scene. Glancing up he returned to looking at the old air force hangar and the constant movement of denim clad inmates moving under escort from one metal cage to another. The red rust glinting threw the pale cream paint as they endlessly opened and closed large iron gates perhaps that were the prompt that had his mind recalling the desert or was it just freedom. You couldn’t fence in the vastness of the Sahara, or perhaps the rust allowed him to...

Read More