Cargoes of cannabis over the Strait from Ceuta to the Costa del Sol

Details have been released of a National Police operation against a drug smuggling gang which operated between Ceuta and the Costa del Sol, and which brought large amounts of cannabis into Spain illegally. Central government offices in Ceuta said eleven arrests have taken place in Marbella, Estepona and Ceuta, and that six of them were from the Autonomous City, two from Málaga province, and the remaining three were Moroccan.It has been a joint investigation on both sides of the Strait, which brought information that the gang planned to make a drugs run to Estepona on the 5th of this month. The haul amounted to more one and a half tons of cannabis,...

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"Helldorado" - paradise that has mutated into a nightmare.

"for sale" signs are the most stark warning yet that the Spanish property bubble has finally burst. Here in Southern Spain, bitter expats talk about "Helldorado" - paradise that has mutated into a nightmare. Tumbling property prices, a glut of new properties still flooding onto the market and rising Spanish interest rates are taking their toll. Added to this, illegal building practices mean that 100,000 coastal homes are now under threat of demolition....

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Nerja teacher has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing an 11 year old

32 year old Nerja teacher, named with the initials A.P. and who works at the Nueva Nerja Primary School, has been arrested at his home in Torrox, on charges of sexually abusing an 11 year old member of his family.The married father of two was arrested in Saturday evening charged with continued abuse of the 11 year old girl. He is well known in Nerja and also works as a Civil Protection volunte...

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Santiago del Valle disposed of the infant girl's body in a sewer around 300 metres from his apartment in Huelva

Santiago del Valle, a convicted paedophile arrested in March for the murder of five-year-old Mari Luz Cortés, has told a judge that he disposed of the infant girl's body in a sewer around 300 metres from his apartment in Huelva.Mari Luz's body was found in an estuary outside the city 54 days after her disappearance on 13 January.In his court testimony from 27 March, which was made public this week, Del Valle admitted to enticing Mari Luz into the entrance hall to his apartment block with a toy after seeing her alone on the street. He claims she fell as she climbed the stairs and hit her head."I didn't touch her," Del Valle, who was previously...

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Spanish police have seized more than 700 priceless artifacts

Spanish police have seized more than 700 priceless artifacts plundered from archaeological sites in South America and smuggled to Europe, they said on Tuesday.The pieces, predating the Spanish conquest, included dozens of valuable golden objects, masks, vessels, pendants and maces, stolen from Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.An Interior Ministry statement said police had arrested a Spanish man and his Colombian wife who had been trafficking in stolen...

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Julián Muñoz, are refusing to accept the prosecutor’s demand that all those charged with perversion of the course of justice

The idea of a forming a plea bargain pact with the prosecutor has, according to El País, split the ex-GIL party councillors in Marbella who face corruption and other real-estate related charges.Defence lawyers are trying to get the prosecutor’s offer of short jail terms replaced by mere financial penalities.The prosecutor wants a deal to speed up the some 70 cases which are linked to the town, most for the granting of building licences for illegal...

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Santiago del Valle lured Mari Luz Cortés with a teddy bear

El País newspaper today prints what it says is the statement made by Santiago del Valle in court in Huelva. He’s the man who is accused of killing the Huelva five year old Mari Luz Cortés on January 13th. The newspaper says that his version of events is denied by the police and other statements, but he claims that he threw down a small teddy bear through a window at the door to his home, and called her. The five year old picked it up and entered...

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Convicted paedophile Santiago del Valle has committed other crimes.

Mari Luz Cortes grandfather Juan Cortes said: "The authorities should investigate him fully because that way they may be able to discover what happened to Madeleine. We are sure he is hiding other secrets from the police." Relatives of five-year-old Mari Luz Cortes claim convicted paedophile Santiago del Valle has committed other crimes. Mari Luz was found dead near her home in Huelva 54 days after she went missing last January. The city is 90 minutes from Praia da Luz, Portugal, where Maddie vanished a year ago. Her parents Kate, 40, and Gerry, 39, of Rothley, Leics, have already called on Portuguese police to find out where del Valle was last...

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Coín’s crime wave

Coín’s Local Police made 70 arrests during the month of April, double the monthly average of 30 to 30 and the largest number in the force’s history. Just under two thirds of the arrests were made in the town itself. The rest were made in Alhaurin el Grance, Guaro, Monda and Tolox, which come under Coín’s jurisdiction. Most of the arrests involved robbery, followed by drug trafficking. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the National Police in Malaga city said firearms were taking over from knives as the weapon most used to commit crimes. He said there had been nine shootouts and more than 20 robberies at gun point since the beginning of the ye...

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Julian Muñoz and Marisol Yagüe would serve between six months and a year in prison for each crime they are found guilty of, without having to appear

Former GIL party councillors in Marbella who have been charged with corruption or some irregularity regarding town planning permissions in the town have been offered a deal by the Prosecutor’s Office. Under the deal, former mayors Julian Muñoz and Marisol Yagüe would serve between six months and a year in prison for each crime they are found guilty of, without having to appear in court, as well as a ten year ban on holding public office. This deal only applies to those who are charged with granting building licences in Marbella which were outside the Urban Plan, and other associated irregularities such as bribery, misuse of public funds and the...

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Mari Luz Cortés family set out on a pilgrimage around Spain

family of Mari Luz Cortés set out on a pilgrimage around Spain last week to collect signatures in a campaign to tighten the laws against pederasts. Mari Luz disappeared from her home in Huelva on January 13th when she popped out to buy sweets from a nearby kiosk. Her body appeared 55 days later in a stream and one of the family’s neighbours, Santiago del Valle, a convicted child molester, was arrested. Del Valle had been sentenced to jail two years earlier but for reasons which are currently under investigation, he was never actually put in jail. At the time of the girl’s murder he was reporting once every two weeks to a court in Sevilla. He...

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Two men have been arrested in Cadiz in connection with the rape of ten women

Two men have been arrested in Cadiz in connection with the rape of ten women, a crime which an innocent man has already served a ten year sentence for committing. The enquiry was re-opened as new evidence relating to the rapes, which took place between 1995 and 2000, came to light. The man who was originally tried and convicted for the crime was sentenced when one victim claimed to recognise his voice, despite the fact that his DNA did not match evidence gathered at the crime scenes, and the rapes still continued following his arrest! The new suspects are both 53-year old Spaniards from Cadiz, who carried out the attacks on random victims, whilst...

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Right now, Catral is infamous for its illegal houses

Over the past decade, developers built about 100,000 illegal homes in Spain, and consumer advocates say thousands of those are now threatened with demolition as regional governments try to deter clandestine construction. The crusade may discourage the foreign buyers who fueled Spain's housing boom, deepening a slump that began last year. Leo Levett-Smith and his wife, Jean, thought they did everything right when they bought their retirement home in Spain. They used a registered real estate agent, a Spanish notary and obtained their mortgage through one of then country's largest savings banks. Then in January they received a demolition order saying...

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