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 officer on the Costa Blanca, who was too scared to give his name, described how he was the recent target of a gang.
“I was asleep in my house with my wife, and my son was in another room. Suddenly I woke up and felt sweaty, sick and groggy for no reason. I staggered out of bed and I could hardly walk. I turned on the passage light, saw it was 5am and went to the bathroom where I vomited. I must have passed out again because it wasn’t until later that morning I realised that someone had entered the house during the night and robbed us, and I had not heard a thing.
“The robbers had even been next to our bed and stolen my wife’s jewellery and watch. They must have sprayed me with something to keep me asleep and that’s what made me ill.”
Police told him that he was a victim of skilled Eastern European gangs, mainly from Romania and Albania, who are stalking foreign residents. The police say that they are overwhelmed by the gangs’ activities. Mayors, worried about the damage being done to their area’s reputation, have promised to set up emergency task forces to cope with the menace, but British homeowners say that there is little evidence of extra patrols.
Chris Poole, a former police officer from Dudley, in the West Midlands, has set up a neighbourhood watch team to patrol the streets at Orihuela on the Costa Blanca. Worried British homeowners around Torrevieja, 30 miles south of Alicante, have set up 42 patrols.
Victims have complained that even when the gas gangsters are caught, lax laws allow them to go free. Some gang members have been detained as many as 25 times. Around Tarragona, hundreds of villas have been robbed in the past four months despite Operation Insomnia undertaken by the Civil Guard. Members of an Albanian gang were charged with 200 villa robberies. Britons who have tried to resist their attackers have been treated brutally. One pensioner was stabbed in the neck, tied up and left for dead as a four-man gang ransacked his home.
The frustration at the lack of police action led to a meeting last week between Enough is Enough (Ya Está Bien), a foreigners’ action group, and Etelvina Andreu, the regional government delegate in Alicante. She acknowledged that the extra police protection that was promised would not arrive until later this year. A spokesman for the Civil Guard said: “This is a paradise for [the criminals], with tens of thousands of villas and apartments. They go for wealthy-looking properties, especially with nice cars outside.”
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