Fraudsters: Evangelia Liogka and Christakis Philippou conned thousands of people into buying their 'bargain holidays'

Accountant Timothy Entwistle, 57, who lived in an 11-bedroom mansion near Yeovil, Somerset, and educated his three children at public school despite being a declared bankrupt, masterminded the finances.
Accountant: Timothy Entwistle lived a luxury lifestyle in a £1m mansion

Fraudsters: Evangelia Liogka and Christakis Philippou conned thousands of people into buying their 'bargain holidays'Instead, the £7million they handed over collectively went into the pockets of crooked travel agents who masterminded a three-year scam to fund lavish lifestyles.Some customers ended up in the resort of their choice before finding out that their booking didn't exist.Groups who went to Cyprus were branded illegal immigrants when they turned out to have nowhere to stay.Others arrived at UK airports to be told their names weren't on the flight list.Many found their tickets didn't arrive as expected two weeks before their planned departure date.When they called the travel company, the phone number no longer worked and they could find no trace of the firm.Victims included honeymooners, a seriously-ill man taking his dream holiday, a couple celebrating their silver wedding and a group of disabled children.John Reynolds, the former Lord Provost of Aberdeen, the city's mayor, was duped two years running.Police started investigating following a flood of complaints in the wake of the alleged transatlantic airline bomb plot in the summer of 2006.Concerned about their flights, dozens of worried travellers called the bogus firm to get advice but the fraudsters had already shut it down.The ringleader was Christakis Philippou, 64, a Cypriot with dual British nationality.He worked with his mistress Evangelia Liogka, 40, also a Cypriot. The couple share a £3million townhouse in Chelsea.He has since moved to Chilcombe, Dorset. He and Philippou were found guilty at Southwark Crown Court yesterday of five charges of conspiring to defraud customers of a travel business that they took over dishonestly.
Liogka was found guilty of four counts of conspiring to defraud customers. She was cleared of one other count.
A fourth person, travel agent Peter Kemp, 52, from Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud at an earlier hearing.
The gang will be sentenced in April.The group made nearly £7million between 2003 and 2006 by setting up travel companies which would initially trade legally, either on the internet or on Teletext, attracting business with bargain holidays in Greece, Spain and Cyprus.

Read More

Alleged arms merchant Monzer Al Kassar has been extradited from Spain to the United States

A long-time Spanish resident known as the "Prince of Marbella" for his opulent lifestyle, Al Kassar is charged in a federal indictment unsealed last June with conspiring to kill Americans, supply terrorists, obtain anti-aircraft missiles and launder money, the police said.US officials confirm that alleged arms merchant Monzer Al Kassar has been extradited from Spain to the United States. He arrived in the here this morning.
Al Kassar allegedly armed terrorist groups, including the Palestinian Liberation Front, and in the past has been accused of arming the Palestinian terrorists who in 1985 hijacked the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro. He was acquitted by Spain's high court in 1995 of a charge of piracy in connection with the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro by Palestinian guerrillas. Now, he faces new terrorism charges and a trial in the United States. Arrested on June 8, 2007 at the Madrid airport in Spain in a sting operation orchestrated by US Drug Enforcement Administration agents, Al Kassar was held on terrorism charges issued by a U.S. court, Spain's National Police said at the time.

"Since the early 1970s, Al Kassar has been a source of weapons and military equipment for armed factions engaged in violent conflicts around the world. Some of these factions have included known terrorist organizations, such as the Palestinian Liberation Front, the goals of which included attacking United States interests and United States nationals," said Michael Garcia, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Al Kassar is alleged by the U.S. to have supplied arms to the Colombian narcoterrorist organization FARC. The U.S. indictment also alleges he ran an international network of co-conspirators, falsified the end-user certificates required to ship arms and laundered his money through numerous dummy companies.

Read More

Benalmádena 34 cars and four motorbikes were burned out

34 cars and four motorbikes were burned out in a fire in the early hours of Friday which took place outside the Tio Charles urbanisation in Benalmádena.
The blaze started just after 4,10 am and was declared to be extinguished just after three hours later. Firemen from Benalmádena and Fuengirola attended the scene.
Despite the ferocity of the blaze there was no need for any people to be evacuated from the area.

Read More

four year in prison after more than 3,150 child porn images were found on his computer

The court in Sevilla has sentenced a man to four year in prison after more than 3,150 child porn images were found on his computer together with 157 videos, all of which he shared with other users of the internet.EFE news agency reports that 32 year old C.T.R. was discovered when he took his lap-top computer in for repair and the shop informed the police on finding the contents. Police say that there were images of children, some aged under 13, taking part in explicit sexual practices. The sentence rejected the defence claim to the man’s right to privacy and the claim that the police registered the computer without a judicial order.

Read More

suspects were rounded up by cops backed by riot police in Malaga, on Spain’s Costa del Sol.

Fifty-five Nigerians were arrested in armed swoops by Spanish fraudbusters on more than 60 homes and businesses. The suspects were rounded up by cops backed by riot police in Malaga, on Spain’s Costa del Sol. The gang are believed to have ripped off 1,500 victims worldwide – many of them British – for £21.6million.Individual losses average £14,000, but range from £640 to a massive £720,000. The crackdown followed the jailing of a Nigerian last Friday in Surrey after a disabled British pensioner was swindled out of his £100,000 life savings in a lottery scam. Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency is also currently engaged in a long-running investigation in Spain and Nigeria into lottery rackets which target Britons. Victims get letters saying they have won vast prizes in Spain’s legendary state lottery. The villains follow up with demands for cash to cover “local taxes” and “administrative charges”. Inspector Antonio Pintano, head of the National Police Fraud Squad’s lottery unit, said: “Many of those who are swindled are elderly.” Nigerian Victor Ifejika, 42, was jailed for a year last week for conning Gareth Jones, 70. Mr Jones was so convinced he had won a £1.3million jackpot that he took out bank loans to make some of the payments, Guildford Crown Court heard. Ifejika flew to Britain to complete the fraud. Mr Jones, who was paralysed in one arm after two strokes, was finally handed a silver case – full of cotton wool and paper.
A police source warned last night: “If you receive a letter or email claiming that you have won millions in a foreign lottery and it sounds too good to be true – then it is.”

Read More

British family’s £4.4 million Spanish home has been wrecked by 400 teenagers

British family’s £4.4 million Spanish home has been wrecked by 400 teenagers after their 16-year-old daughter used social networking sites to invite people from across the Costa del Sol to drink a “lot of alcohol”. After invites were posted on the Bebo and Facebook sites, rumours were spread that the Jodie Hudson’s parents did not mind the seven-bedroom house being trashed because they were getting divorced. By the end of the night, according to a friend of the privately-educated teenager, the house “looked like a war zone” with £6,000 worth of jewellery and clothes looted by some of the guests, and televisions thrown in the swimming pool. Miss Hudson organised the party through invites logged on both her Bebo and Facebook profiles. Describing it as the “party of the year” she wrote on the sites: “Theres gone be a lot of alcohol an amazing DJ.” As the party escalated, Jodie’s mother, Amanda Hudson, an estate agent who is estranged from her husband and has lived in Marbella for 10 years, called the police. Officers arrived at the house shortly after midnight. One partygoer said: “People scarpered in all directions, but the police managed to pull people over and search their bags and pockets, but it was already too late and a lot was gone. “Somebody said that we were allowed to wreck the house because the birthday girl’s parents were getting divorced and there were kids behaving like gangsters from a rap video, throwing stuff around and smashing things. There were chairs, tables, even a TV in the pool.” Following the party, Miss Hudson wrote: “There’s so much damage and clothes stolen. A lot of broken doors. people caight (SIC) having sex.” The house in the exclusive El Paraiso development has been on the market for 5.6m euros. Howeve the villa, which rents out for £4,000 per week in the summer season, was completely trashed and will now be unable to rent in the coming months.

Read More

offences were committed at Melling’s villa in Torrevieja,

4 men have pleaded guilty and been sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court for a total of 17 sexual offences on three teenaged boys from Tyneside.The court heard how Derek Marshall, 52, and his son, Graeme Marshall, 24, befriended the boys, aged between 13 and 16 years. The victims were then introduced to a 58-year-old man called Melling, from Middlesbrough, who had been living in Spain, and Paul Anthony Bures, 53, from Kent, both of whom were jailed indefinitely. The offences were committed at Melling’s villa in Torrevieja, and also at locations in the UK: Kent, London and Northumbria.Judge John Evans described the case as: “An altogether horrendous story. The psychological damage wrought upon the victims is perfectly evidential.”
The court heard how the Marshalls befriended the boys and introduced them to Melling who gained their trust by buying them gifts and taking them to football matches. The Marshalls convinced the boys’ parents they would look after them while on holiday at Melling’s Torrevieja villa. Police began investigating Melling when one of the victims’ fathers contacted them, but Melling, suspecting the authorities were on his trail, fled to Spain. He was eventually deported from Bulgaria, whilst trying to cross into Turkey, in July 2007.

Read More

In Spain it is legal to grow cannabis for personal use in his own property, even for recreational use.

A judge of the town of Ferrol declared a patient, who grows and uses cannabis to treat pain and spasticity due to spinal cord injury, not guilty, because he "did not commit a crime" against public health. In Spain it is legal to grow cannabis for personal use in his own property, even for recreational use. However, 32- year old Juan Manuel Rodríguez did not cultivate cannabis at his home, but in a nursing home of the national health service and he was denounced by the director of the centre. Meanwhile the Spanish government acknowledged the medical benefits of cannabis in some illnesses. The current national plan on drugs issued by the Health Ministry says that "the therapeutic potential of cannabis has been widely reviewed" and that "there is scientific evidence for therapeutic use in nausea and vomiting due to antineoplastic treatments, lost of appetite in AIDS and terminal cancer, and the treatment of neuropathic pain in multiple sclerosis."

Read More

Portugal's Judicial Police arrested four people for allegedly trying to smuggle the Coke into Spain

Portugal's Judicial Police said Thursday it had seized 121.8 kg of cocaine and arrested four people for allegedly trying to smuggle the drug into Spain.
The detainees, three men and one woman, "aimed to acquire and secure the transport of cocaine from Portugal to Spain with the intention of distributing it there," the police said.
"Some of those arrested had already been linked to narcotics trafficking by either Portuguese or foreign authorities," the police added. Four passenger vehicles were also seized, three of them with Spanish license plates, the police added.

Read More