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Sometimes it a very small world. A Belgian couple who had their car stolen at gunpoint in Belgium some months ago could not believe it when they recognised their attackers when on holiday in Alicante. They saw them on the beach in Guardamar, Alicante last Monday, and made no hesitation in calling the Spanish police. While they were waiting for the police to arrive, the couple found their own car parked nearby, and the owner decided to puncture the tyres to ensure that the thieves could not take it again. After the police arrived a search of the car revealed a simulated pistol. The two men, 47 year old L.J. and 20 year old G.C.D., were taken into custody and it’s now known that there was an international search and capture order in force against them. One of them has served time for serious sexual crimes against children. They have now both been passed to the National Court ahead of being extradited to Belgium.
The second largest ever haul of heroin in Spanish history has been seized at the port in Algeciras, from a container which was on route to the Ivory Coast from Pakistan. The consignment of heroin was found in three hundred cylinders, each weighing half a kilo, which had been hidden in the cargo of iron oxide powder. The Agencia Tributaria Tax Authority had tracked the container until it arrived at the port, where it was searched on Wednesday. There has been no announcement of any arrests in connection with the find as yet. Spain’s biggest ever haul of heroin was in Sitges, Cataluña, three years ago, where more than 300 kilos were seized.
Antonio Marín Lara, the ex Socialist Mayor of Ronda who was amongst seven people arrested on Tuesday in an operation against alleged planning corruption, dubbed ‘Operación Acinipo’, has been released on 150,000 € bail. He was freed on Thursday after questioning by the judge and is charged with perversion of the course of justice, bribery, money laundering, misappropriation of public funds and influence peddling. It’s understood that he has 15 days to pay his bail. Marín Lara left the court in Ronda at around 5pm, five and a half hours after he arrived there under police escort. The six remaining suspects who were arrested on Tuesday have also been released from custody, but all have been charged. Two other people have been questioned at courts in Madrid and Valencia and face similar charges as the ex Mayor. The four Socialist councillors, including the ex-Mayor, among those arrested on Tuesday have now resigned from the PSOE party. The party had previously suspended the four.
British swimmers, Edward Thedore Cox and Frazer Lloyd-Jones managed to swim across the Strait of Gibraltar on Saturday. A third Briton, Richard Woodrup Skelhorn, had to abandon his attempt halfway, being unable to keep up with the other two. The two successful swimmers, both aged 34, left La Isla de Tarifa at 0910 and arrived at Punta Almansa at 1357, helped by calm seas and weak westerly winds. A Moroccan police patrol inspected the documentation of the participants without any problem on their arrival on the Moroccan coast.
An alleged serial killer, who has been operating on the Costa del Sol and who is believed to be responsible for the deaths of two women, has been arrested. The crimes were on August 11 and September 10 in Calahonda and San Pedro de Alcántara, and in both cases the women had Spanish nationality but were of Latin American origin, and both were stabbed. Preliminary reports from the autopsies show certain similarities between the crimes. The 42 year old man, who has been revealed to be a foreigner although his nationality has not been announced, was arrested in Mijas, and the man’s mother and girlfriend have also been arrested to determine their possible implication in the crimes. The arrest took place on Friday night in a gymnasium near the suspect’s home in Urbanisation Riviera del Sol in Mijas Costa, and he was taken for questioning at the Fuengirola Civil Guard Barracks, while the two women were taken for questioning by the police in Marbella. The investigation was carried out jointly by the Guardia Civil and the National Police. They say that they cannot rule out other victims in other parts of Spain or in other countries, and they will continue to investigate over the next few days to try and establish if the suspect has taken part in other killings. On Saturday they said that the arrested man could have committed two more crimes, and believe that the tortures his victims before death. Latest reports indicate that he has admitted to the two crimes on the Costa del Sol.
FALKLANDS war veteran went on a lavish £1million spending spree after ripping off two gangsters. Ex-Royal Navy officer Dean Priestley had been asked by the crooks to drive the used notes across the Channel to Spain. But instead of sticking to the plan the 47-year-old went on the run and set about leading a life of luxury for six months. Advertisement >> Priestley splashed out on holidays, homes, cars, boats and jewellery as he hid from the villains who put out a hit on him. A court heard the furious crooks, known only as Mull and Steve, vowed to spend £5million hunting him down. The extraordinary case emerged as wife Derry, 48, was convicted of conspiracy to launder money. Her husband was jailed for three and a half years earlier this year after pleading guilty to conspiring to convert criminal property. Detective Constable Graham Duncan said: “This is the first case I have come across in 25 years of someone who allegedly stole £1million from criminals and has not given it back. “Dean Priestley was spending money like it was going out of fashion. He has shown a brass neck to the criminals he stole money from and shown no remorse.” Dad-of-two Priestley fled his £900,000 home in a water mill in Bielby, East Yorks, after stealing the cash. He called his wife to say: “I’ve done something really bad. I’m going to have to stay away for a long time.” He opened bank accounts in his privately-educated son’s names before depositing thousands of pounds in stolen cash. Priestley quickly splashed out on a luxury £230,000 Sealine S48 motor cruiser on Lake Windermere to hide from the villains. He also bought a £162,000 stone cottage for son Nathan, a semi-pro rugby player, in Wilsden, Bradford. He blew £20,000 on a Land Rover Defender 90 to drive between Lake District marinas and two £23,000 Audi A3s for cash from showroom dealers. He soon traded in one of the Audis, swapping it for a £32,000 black BMW 630 cabriolet picked out by his wife. At the time, Priestley was also being hunted by the police as he was wanted for extradition to France after being convicted in his absence of cannabis smuggling in his lorry. Wife Derry told Hull crown court she was threatened by two men from Manchester’s underworld to tell them where her husband was. She was told to take his birth and medical certificates to them just before they attacked his two sons with spray paint and an iron bar at their home. She said: “I got very depressed and suicidal. I was very low for a long time. I fled my home.” She remained in contact with her husband by mobile phone and made repeated visits to the Lake District to see him. The court heard Priestley bought a £5,000 diamond and 18 carat gold pendant from a jeweller for his wife’s birthday. He then paid for holidays to Spain, Amsterdam and a £4,000 trip to Australia. He even roped in his nephews, paying them £1,000 for every £10,000 they could put into banks. Mrs Priestley stopped using her Range Rover after finding a tracking device put on it by the Manchester criminals. It was Mrs Priestley’s call to the police saying the gangsters had told her that her husband had stolen £1million which started the investigation. Twice-married Mrs Priestley denied joining him when he ran up credit card bills on shopping trips. Prosecutor Timothy Capstick said her husband’s empire came crashing down when he was arrested by police coming out of a Leeds Hotel. They knew criminals had put a price on his head. The jury took less than 60 minutes to find Derry Priestley guilty. As well as the money laundering charge, she was also convicted of attempting to convert criminal property and converting criminal property. She will be sentenced at a later date. Her luxury home in Bielby, which the family had a mortgage on, has since been repossessed and sold on. Dean Priestley along with sons James, 23, Nathan, 22, and nephews Simon Taylor, 35, and Christopher Taylor, 32, all pleaded guilty to conspiring to convert criminal property before the start of their trial in March. His sons and nephews got suspended prison sentences. Priestley now faces an assets recovery hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act to seize any criminal cash he has left.
A Spanish prison screened a short film made by inmates Friday with one missing ingredient -- a key actor in the jail-house drama is on the run. Inmates spent months making "Guilty", about a murderer haunted by his victim, to show in an annual festival behind bars in Leon, northern Spain, a prison official and media here said. "Among the inmates taking part, there was one in the final stages of his sentence who was allowed out regularly with leave, but who did not come back from one of those leaves," said a prison service spokeswoman. Prisoners completed the film without the missing actor who disappeared at least two months ago, said the spokeswoman for the Secretary General of Penitentiary Institutions. She denied reports he had the leading role. "He may have had some more important scenes but he was not not necessarily the hero." The actor is being sought for breach of a six-year drug-dealing sentence, which had been due for completion in 2012, she said, stressing that he was not considered a danger.
Spanish man who was arrested for starting the fire which broke out on Ibiza on Sunday night is believed to have started it through negligence while he was caring for his marijuana plantation nearby. Civil Guard sources have told the EFE news agency that the cause is thought to be either a cigarette he was smoking or a fire he had lit to cook food. The suspect had spent the past few days caring for his crop in the area where the blaze broke out. He spent his nights in a home-made shelter and used a nearby cave to dry out his plants. The Civil Guard seized marijuana plants and dried leaves at the site, amounting to almost 6 kilos of the drug. The man now faces additional charges of a public health crime. The fire which began in Cala Llonga and forced hundreds of people to be evacuated in Santa Eulàra des Riu destroyed more than 80 hectares of pines and just under 9 hectares of agricultural crops. The amount of land destroyed is however lower than the original estimate of 115 hectares. The Baleares Nature Institute, Ibanat, gives the amount as 92.3 hectares.
The gang dealt in cocaine and designer drugs at the clubs on the island.Britons and an Irishman have been arrested by the Guardia Civil on Ibiza, accused of supplying drugs to discotheques on the island over the summer. The head of the gang was arrested in Manchester where a search of his flat revealed 40,000 pounds sterling and five kilos of cocaine. Information leading to the arrests came from a previous operation carried out at the end of August against other British traffickers on the Baleares, in which there were 13 arrests, nine Britons, three Irish and a Polish man. The Guardia Civil say the groups only operated in the high summer season, and made the use of several homes on the island to store small quantities of drugs which would be distributed within days. The main store of the drugs were hidden in hard to access parts of the countryside more than 5 kms away from any homes. They were protected in plastic bags, sealed with tape and placed in lunchboxes to avoid damp and any deterioration of the drug.
The National Police are working together with the Civil Guard to solve two recent murders on the Málaga coast which La Opinión de Málaga reports officers believe could have been committed by a serial killer. Both victims were women, of a similar age, and were both from South America. They had both taken out Spanish nationality and were both found stabbed to death in properties which were not theirs. The first victim was Susana M.F. from Argentina, whose son found her stabbed to death in a flat in Calahonda, Mijas, on August 11. One month later, on September 10, the body of Maryuru Alice P., a 47 year old woman from Brazil, was discovered in San Pedro de Alcántara, by the owner of the flat where she was found. The autopsy has shown that she died the previous day. Domestic violence has been ruled out in both cases. La Opinión has spoken to detectives who are working on the investigation, who believe the killer could be related to previous murders with a similar modus operandi.
The judge in the Astapa case, regarding corruption in Estepona Town Hall, has more than 40 million € belonging to the 99 indicted in the case frozen, and Hacienda has detected a missing 20 million from appraisals on four real estate deals. These are named a El Ángel, Valle Romano, Arroyo Enmedio Este and Camino del Cerrillar. The case summary shows that as many as 1,800 properties have been impounded in the case, along with 50 vehicles, and a stud with 38 horses. One of the papers dated December 2010 shows that police have requested information from more than 100 local companies, most of them hotels, banks or builders and from what was obtained have concluded that the Town Hall and the political parties organised events and other items paid for by third parties, or by the people alleged to be at the centre of the case. El País reports that the ex Chairman of the Caja Jaén is among those implicated for bribery. José Antonio Arcos Moya, is alleged to have been involved in the payments surrounding concessions made by the Town Hall in 2007 regarding the first occupancy licence for La Reserva de Selwo Golf S.L. The case summary notes the high life style of the ex Councillor, José Ignacio Crespo and says there are indications that he received a 40,000 € payment from a company with town planning interests in the town. The tax authorities are investigating more than 120 companies and individuals and the police continue to wade through 160 boxes of files and 100 hard disks of information.
holidaymaker is being held in a hell-hole Moroccan jail after being caught in a camper van with £500,000 of hashish. Daniel Healy, 66, was arrested last week as he tried to drive across the border from Morocco to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. The police discovered the 100kg stash of cannabis resin hidden in aluminium boxes stashed in a water tank. Since then, Healy – who is from Glasgow – has spent six nights in the violent and cramped Tetouan prison. Friend Graham Boszormenyi, 46, claimed that Healy was unaware of the hidden drugs. Ex-Royal Navy submariner Graham said: “Daniel is a good friend of mine and I know that he had no knowledge of what he was carrying. “I spoke to him a couple of days ago and he said he plans to plead guilty because he’s been told he’ll only get one year. “But I know the system in Morocco and I don’t believe it for a minute. “I’ve been through this before. Twice they’ve had me in Morocco and I think he could end up getting four to six years – and he’s too old for that. “He’s in the worst prison possible, where there are 60 people in a cell with one shared toilet. “He’s a harmless old man who is known by lots of people around the world. He’s a noisy drunk but he’s not any kind of criminal. “I know the people who are behind this and I think they will help by coming forward to the UK authorities and telling them that he knew nothing about it. “I have spoken to his family in Scotland and they are understandably very worried. “He has been sucker-punched. He had no idea that these people had just used him. It’s backfired on everyone, especially him. “He was travelling under a different name, John McLeish. I don’t know why. He’s due to be tried on Tuesday.” Healy was driving the Spanish- registered camper van when he was stopped on the border between Morocco and Ceuta. He had been expected to get a ferry from Ceuta across the Mediterranean to the Spanish city of Algeciras. Healy’s daughter Siobhan is a celebrated glass artist with a studio in Glasgow’s Dennistoun. The 34-year-old – whose clients include the Scottish government, the BBC and many councils – said: “I don’t know anything about this. “It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing my dad would be involved in.” Officials from the British embassy are expected to make the 215-mile trip from the Moroccan capital Rabat to offer Healy assistance. A US state department report on Moroccan jail conditions said: “They generally did not meet international standards. “Prisons were overcrowded, resulting in poor hygienic conditions and are prone to violence.” A Moroccan police spokesman said: “We arrested a Scottish man and he is now in prison. We can’t tell you anything else.” A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are aware of the arrest of a British national in Morocco."
The wife of billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal denied Saturday claims her husband raped a model on a yacht in Spain in 2008, saying she was with him in France when the alleged crime took place. "I was with my husband outside of Spain the day these allegations took place in Ibiza," Amira al-Taweel was quoted as saying by the prince's chief of staff, Kholud al-Dussari. "Quite simply we were not there. We were together in the French city of Cannes. I was with him all the time, and we were with at least 30 people," she said. "Hundreds of witnesses can confirm that we were in Cannes, just as there are dozens of proofs that we were not in Ibiza in 2008." A Spanish court has reopened a probe into the allegations, according to a ruling seen by AFP on Wednesday. Prince Alwaleed is a nephew of King Abdullah and one of world's richest men. He is being asked to respond to a complaint of sexual assault against him in August 2008 by a model who was 20 at the time. In a statement, Alwaleed's Kingdom Holding Co. denied the allegations and said he only heard of them on Tuesday. "These allegations are completely and utterly false. The alleged encounter simply never happened. Indeed, the events could not have happened," said the statement published on the company's website. A judge on the Balearic island of Ibiza ordered the case closed in May 2010 for lack of evidence. But a provincial court overturned that ruling on May 24 and a court in Ibiza on July 27 reopened the proceedings to formally request assistance from the Saudi authorities to take a statement from the prince. The prince, 56, has holdings in Citibank and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Forbes magazine lists him as the 26th richest person in the world with assets of $19.6 billion (14.4 billion euros).
BONFIRE not been properly extinguished near a stream in Entrerrios, Mijas, was the cause of the wildfire which started on Sunday (12th September) night destroying a vast stretch of land. This was the conclusion reached by the regional government’s fire investigation unit, Brigada de Investigacion de Incendios Forestales, on Monday (12th September). Remedios Martel, from the Junta de Andalucia, dismissed rumours suggesting the fire was an act of arson. Five homes were damaged, two of which were completely destroyed by the fire. But witnesses say minor damage has affected several other houses in urbanizations including El Soto de Marbella, Elviria, set in a UNESCO designated nature reserve. Jan Mansi, former president of Phase 2 at El Soto de Marbella Urbanization described the landscape after the fire as “a skeleton of what it was.” “People mainly come to live in the area for the greenery,” she said. But residents at El Soto should consider themselves very lucky, she said, as the flames spread to just metres from the properties. The blaze affected 6.8 million square metres of in Mijas, Ojen and Marbella – the equivalent of 958 football pitches – according to Infoca, the regional fire department. Around 300 properties were evacuated in these areas but occupants were able to return to their properties on Monday. Twenty five patients at a drug rehabilitation centre in Mijas were also evacuated after the staff were told by Guardia Civil they were at risk due to strong winds, according to Paloma Alonso from the facility. They spent the night at the Las Lagunas sports centre being allowed to return on Monday afternoon. The fire was brought under control at 9am Tuesday, and declared completely extinguished at 10pm. Five hundred people participated in the effort to extinguish the blaze, as well as 11 fire engines, and 22 planes and helicopters. This is the biggest fire in Mijas since 2001 when a car blaze led to a wildfire that affected 700 hectares of land.
THE man, 79, accused of killing another in Torremolinos town centre served time for pushing his wife off the Eiffel Tower in 1963, according to a Spanish daily. He was 31 at the time, she was 28, and they had emigrated to France and were working in a factory on the outskirts of Paris. Although he denied the accusations, he was sentenced to five years in prison. Last week he was arrested for shooting a man of the same age outside the Entreplazas office building in Torremolinos and has since remanded to prison without bail. Apparently some years ago the victim wanted to sell an apartment and spoke to the other man who found him a buyer, although the transaction did not go ahead at the time, but later, in 2006. The shooter asked for commission and although the victim gave him some money, the attacker wanted €12,000, and was sentenced to four years in prison in 2007 for stabbing the buyer. He was released in January 2009 and began to threaten the victim, who reported him to the police last month. When he was caught by police after the shooting he claimed that a bag containing the weapon which he was carrying was not his.
According to Spanish local media, police estimate that the couple, known as John and Amanda Treagust, may have netted up to £150,000 by advertising bogus Spanish rental properties, complete with pictures, on their website, Costa Blanca Live. Up to 60 holidaymakers, including Britons, French, Portuguese, Italians and Belgians, are alleged to have fallen for the scam and paid upfront for properties that weren't, in reality, available for rent, or had been rented out to multiple people. The pair ran a blog entitled Life on the Costa Blanca, and boasted of growing their business from a "small project" in 2007 to "a busy and bustling company.....with over five thousand properties managed directly by us, meaning you have the peace of mind that should anything go wrong, or should you have any concerns, we are here to help." Amanda Treagust, referred to as the company's commercial director, is described on the blog as "never resting until her clients are settled into that perfect property and are enjoying the Spanish lifestyle she has come to love and adore". The Treagusts were arrested at a small property in the mountains of Mojacar, Almeria, after an eight-month police operation following an initial complaint lodged back in February. Originally from the Chorley area of Lancashire, John Treagust used to run the Last Orders pub in Wallagate, Wigan. On the pub's Facebook page, created by Treagust, he says: "I had three happy years there, now running a property business in Spain." An online forum about the couple's business dates back to March 2009 and has been inundated with 23 pages of comment, containing more than 200 threads. One comment, posted on August 20 this year, read: "13 girls put down a deposit for a hen weekend away in a villa in Los Balcones also and were informed two days before that the villa was double-booked. As it was a special occasion we have to find somewhere else very quickly and pay the additional fees. "We have still not received any money back and are still chasing. We all want to take action and stop others suffering in the same way." Spanish police were unable to comment on the ongoing investigation.
The theft happened when two British women entered a restaurant in the luxury southern resort of Marbella and one of them left her handbag on the floor by her chair, police said in a statement. "Two well-dressed men came in, one sitting at the bar and the other next to the woman," it said. When the men left, the woman discovered that her handbag, containing 2,000 euros (£1,700) and £400 cash, a mobile phone, a pendant with a diamond worth 12,000 euros (£10,400) and other valuables, had disappeared. Hours later, police stopped a car at a routine checkpoint and found the four occupants had criminal records. Inside the vehicle they also discovered a handbag as well as valuables and cash, which they later identified as belonging to the British woman. All that was missing was the diamond. "During the operation, officers noticed one of the men putting his hand to his mouth," police said. "This gesture and the fact that they had found the pendant without the diamond made the police think he may have swallowed it. "To find the stone, those arrested were taken to a medical center where they underwent X-rays, and the diamond was located inside the stomach of one of them, who admitted swallowing it."
Spanish police say a human smuggler trying to sneak two Moroccans into Spain by crossing the Strait of Gibraltar on a jet ski threw them into the water when detected by coastal authorities and that one drowned. A Civil Guard statement Tuesday said the incident happened Sept. 9 near the Spanish town of Tarifa. The Moroccan driver has been charged with negligent manslaughter. One of the travelers managed to swim ashore after being dumped 500 meters from it, but the other did not survive. Spain is a lure for poor North and sub-Saharan Africans because it is Europe's southern gateway. Every year, thousands try to reach the Spanish mainland or Spain's Canary Islands off the coast of west Africa.
An ongoing investigation dating back well over a year continues after a local man aged 73 was arrested last week and remanded on Friday on the strength of a European Arrest Warrant. On Thursday officers of the RGP arrested Angel Vella of No. 7 Maidstone House. The warrant issued by the Portuguese authorities is for alleged offences of conspiracy to import 6000 kilos of cannabis resin into Portugal. Vella appeared before the Magistrates Court on Friday where he was remanded in custody until September 19. Vella, who was granted legal aid and is represented by Carl Rammage, did not agree to being surrendered to the Portuguese authorities. In court the Portuguese Government was represented by Crown Counsel Karina Khubchand of the International Division EU International Department of the Government of Gibraltar.
AN international drug trafficking network, built by Ireland's wealthiest criminal Christy Kinahan, is back in business, gardai believe. Operation Shovel, the European police crackdown that emanated from the work of the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU), dismantled the multi-million euro empire. But officers say that the gang members have "re-invented" themselves and are using old contacts in Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium to renew their role in drug trafficking. Kinahan (53) is regarded by gardai as being in the top tier of drug traffickers in the European league. "He's a 'Premiership' player," one officer said. "There is no doubt that Shovel caused major disruption of their lucrative business. But a leopard doesn't change its spots and we don't expect these people to undergo a conversion on the road to Damascus." Officers say co-operation between law enforcement agencies in Europe is "second to none and allows gardai to focus on Irish organised crime gangs (OCGs) involved in trafficking drugs that end up in Ireland". "Drug trafficking has always been a borderless crime for the gangs but now it is more or less borderless for us as the co-operation allows us to overcome former legal obstacles. "Law enforcement groups can reach out and take them, no matter who they are or where they are," the officer said. The mayhem created by Operation Shovel is partly responsible for the reduction in drug shipments coming into the country. "It's hard to quantify how much is due to Shovel and other intelligence successes and to the reduced demand arising from the recession." The fatal shooting of Eamon Dunne last year has also had an impact on the trafficking scene here and it has taken his old gang time to regroup after the murder. Not all of them have stayed together, but gardai are satisfied that some of them are again operating as an OCG even if the gang is not as potent as before the murder and does not represent the same threat. Others are keeping a lower profile and detectives say the personnel changes among the gangs have become very fluid. The GNDU does not operate on the basis of a Mr Big or Number One target. "We focus on certain figures, based on intelligence, public need and resources, but we don't respond to public outcry. A lot of the time we are dealing with relative unknowns, who can become big in the future," the officer said. The profits built up by gang leaders from drug trafficking and other crimes are assessed by the Criminal Assets Bureau. But many of those who make the headlines and live flash lifestyles in pubs and clubs, driving fast cars and surrounding themselves with "models", usually end up with little money at the end of their short-lived careers.
Drug traffickers and other organised gangsters have lost millions of euro as a result of the recession. A huge fall-off in demand for cocaine, allied to a series of dodgy investments in property and shares, have devastated the lucrative nest eggs they had built up during the boom times. Now the criminals are switching their focus in a bid to recover some of their losses and tap into new areas. Dozens of Irish gangsters have become heavily immersed in the European scene and are no longer confining their activities to sending drug shipments back to Ireland. They have developed their range of contacts in countries such as the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium and are using these to buy into shipments intended for destinations with much larger markets than here. Gardai confirmed last night that the Irish are among the big players on the European scene and regularly show up on the radars of local police forces on the Continent. Interact "The Irish criminals have learned to follow the market and interact with other OCGs (organised crime gangs) to purchase large shipments and then become involved in selling on the drugs in smaller quantities," an officer explained. "There is a lot of crossover among the gangs and there are no cell structures that might exist in a terrorist organisation. "The Irish are acceptable as partners to become involved in joint enterprises with international gangs moving drugs from South America and west Africa to Spain and the Netherlands." Detectives from the garda national Drugs unit work closely with their European counterparts to combat the gangs as they know that, despite the reduced demand, they will continue to send shipments here and these are likely to increase again when the market improves. "The Irish picture is a reflection of what is happening globally. What is going on in the real economy is mirrored in the drugs world," the officer added. "The spending power of the end user has diminished and the state of the economy dictates that some drug types become more popular." A lot of people who were cocaine users can no longer afford to buy it, resulting in a big drop in demand and supply. The new drug of choice for many is herbal cannabis and the Irish gangs have discovered that's where the growth in the market lies although it took them some time to realise that the Chinese and Vietnamese gangs were ring fencing the new craze for growhouses. It makes economic sense for the gangs to develop growhouses as they can eliminate transportation and logistical costs, increase profits by removing the European middlemen, reduce the risk of being caught by police and customs services here and in Europe and face lower penalties for cannabis rather than cocaine dealing. The homegrown gangs have also suffered heavy financial losses as a result of advice from crooked accountants who advised them to invest in properties overseas or gamble on the stock exchange. During the Celtic Tiger era, traffickers extended lines of credit to customers and drugs were given out "on tick". But now the credit has disappeared and a lot of the dealers have been left with huge debts. The growhouses represent one of their main hopes of recovering some of those losses
GANGLAND hardman Martin Foley has taken to his bike in a bid to dodge another assassination attempt. ''The Viper' is paranoid about car bombs and hitmen outside his Dublin home after 'Dapper Don' Christy Kinahan offered €60,000 to have him whacked. Each morning Foley, who has survived four murder bids already, checks for hidden devices under his car and is now cycling instead of driving himself. And the Viper is not the only gangland tough guy under siege this weekend. Violent mob boss 'Fat' Freddie Thompson is holed up at his mother's house after it was firebombed by rivals who want him dead. Thompson has even gone to the gardai looking for protection as the feud threatens to explode. Viper's Vicious Cycle MARTIN 'The Viper' Foley has been warned that his life is in serious danger after 'The Dapper Don' Christy Kinahan put a €60,000 bounty on his head.
And the ex-WBO title holder was so determined to return to his past glory he began sparring with dad Peter, 62, in the garden of his apartment within hours of being freed.
Harrison also showed off his super-fit physique as he strolled with fiancée Stacey Gardner, 27, and toddler Jack in the resort of Estepona.
And the star, who has battled a booze problem, vowed: "I will be World Champ again. Nobody's going to stop me. One thousand per cent.
"What keeps me going is my children and my family. I'm going to be the champ again for them."
He also told a pal just before being released from the maximum security Botafuego nick that he had ditched drinking for good.
He said every day of his horror ordeal inside the Spanish prison system had been "hell" — and admitted he had caused his own downfall.
He added: "I promise I will never go back to the way I was. I don't know who that person was — but it wasn't me. This is me now, and I am going to be back on top."
Tasting freedom ... the boxer leaves prison with belongings on Saturday and at Gibraltar airport yesterday
The troubled ace, from Glasgow's Gorbals area, walked out of the notorious jail three miles from coastal town Algeciras
Málaga Prosecutors’ Office has asked for a total of 27 years in prison for three British men who are accused of trafficking in cocaine. The three, who also face a 3.6 million € fine each, were found with some 15 kilos of the drugs, and one of them is also accused of document falsification for being found with fake passports. The value of the drugs intervened has been estimated at 900,000 €. Europa Press reports that the provisional conclusions of the prosecutor reveal that one of the men was caught by the National Police in Alsasua, Navarra ‘when he was transporting 15 packets of the drug in a rucksack, while driving an articulated lorry. The prosecution alleges that the transport had been agreed with the other two Britons, and the three had intended to sell the drugs to a third party. The oral hearing for the case is expected to get underway in Section Nine of the Provincial Court in Málaga on the 14th of this month.
Dissident republican crime gangs in Dublin have split and are feuding in ways similar to the bloody factionalising of the remnants of the terror group the Irish National Liberation Amy (INLA) in the late Eighties and Nineties. Since former Real IRA man Liam Kenny, 53, was shot dead at his home in Chapelizod, Dublin, in June a series of serious incidents including several attempted murders have taken place. Kenny, a former Provisional IRA member had been a member of the Real IRA in Dublin but fell out with other members after it split acrimoniously into two factions in the city. Last Wednesday, an associate of Kenny's, Frank Nolan, 49, was shot and seriously injured when a teenager on a bicycle pulled up beside him at Oranmore Road in Ballyfermot and shot him at close range. There had been a pipe bomb attack on Nolan's home in July. Nolan, who served a term of imprisonment for reckless endangerment in an incident in which a man was shot in the thigh in a Ballyfermot pub in 2000, is recovering in hospital. The incident has created more tension and gardai expect there were will be more attacks. The reasons for the attack were not clear but gardai say there had been a public meeting of republicans last weekend and threats had apparently been exchanged afterwards. It is believed that after his row with his former dissident republican associates, Liam Kenny left the Real IRA faction and moved to the group styling itself as the Continuity IRA. This group has now split in two as well, with one group led by a Limerick man in his late fifties but with support in Dublin and which is opposed to another faction also still styling itself with the same name based in Dublin. In traditional republican style, the various groups send coded claims to newspapers making allegations and threats against each other, followed by counter-claims that the initial statements were from "gangsters" or "drug dealers" and not republicans. This is exactly what went on when the INLA went into its finally destructive round of feuding in the late Eighties. All the Dublin dissident groups are aligned in one way or another with the city's drug gangs and gardai are concerned that they are adding an extra dimension to the already violent state of organised crime in the city. The investigation into Kenny's murder has become highly complicated with detectives trying to work out the reasons behind the killing as Kenny was at odds with not only his former dissident associates but also with drug dealers in the west of the city. There was initially suspicion last week that there might be a dissident link to the murder of Thomas McDonagh, 49, a traveller shot dead at his caravan in Ballymun last Saturday night. Gardai have known for some time of tensions between Traveller and settled gangs in north Dublin and believe that Travellers have been selling pipe bombs to both ordinary criminal and dissident republican gangs. However, Mr McDonagh was not involved in these activities and is believed to have been murdered by a Finglas-based gang of settled criminals involved in the drugs trade and in armed robberies including tiger kidnappings. It is believed he had been involved in drug dealing and had a heroin problem and was shot because of an unpaid debt of €15,000. One of the main current concerns among gardai in Dublin is the re-emergence of the gangland figure Freddie Thompson following a fire-bomb attack on his mother's house in the Coombe area. Gardai in the Dublin South Central Division have been on high alert since the attack on the home of Lisa Thompson, who has no involvement in criminal activity, but is believed to have been targeted by her son's rivals. Freddie Thompson had spent most of the previous 15 months in England, returning only for brief visits to Dublin and the gang violence in the south city had reduced. It is believed he was concerned that he would be arrested and extradited to Spain after Spanish police said they had issued a warrant for his arrest and extradition at the time of a series of high- profile raids in May last year on the mainly Irish gang led by Dubliner Christy Kinahan, who has been living in Estepona, Spain. However, the warrant has not been sent to gardai even though they have informed the Spanish authorities of his presence here. Thompson had been staying in Estepona up until shortly before the launching of Europe-wide raids aimed at the organisation, which Spanish, British and Europol police said was headed by Kinahan. There were 78 raids including 45 here, 21 in Spain and 12 in Britain. Some 34 people were arrested and €1m in cash seized. Spanish police said their criminal assets agency was investigating properties worth millions including a holiday resort in Brazil. Thompson was questioned in February 2007 when his associate, Paddy Doyle, 27, from Dublin was shot dead in Estepona but Thompson was not at the scene and it is thought the murder was carried out by Turkish mafia
Spanish police have smashed the drug ring that is believed to have supplied Kenley teenager Jodie Nieman with the ecstasy tablet that probably killed her. Mark Adrian Whitley, 39 from Croydon, was among 13 suspected drug dealers arrested by police last Thursday in Ibiza where the 19-year-old died in July. Spanish police confirmed the majority of the pills seized in the raids were Pink Rock Star, the same type believed to have killed Miss Nieman. It is thought the dodgy pills were also responsible for poisoning eight other individuals in Ibiza over the summer. Police said the drug ring was the biggest British group operating on the island and had now been "completely dismantled". Officers from Spain’s Civil Guard, supported by British officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, raided eight properties across the party island. As part of Operation Rula, police confiscated £60,500 in various currencies, 4kg of cocaine, 3,600 MDMA pills, 53g of hashish and 300 doses of anabolic steroids. There were also precision scales, mobile phones and other drug-related paraphernalia in the addresses. A Civil Guard spokesman said: "This one of the most active gangs on the island which is the main supplier of cocaine and other designer drugs around the clubs and bars. "Enquiries were carried out on the basis of intelligence obtained by the Guardia Civil after other gangs involved in drugs trafficking on the island were dismantled. "The majority of these gangs were British and took advantage of the influx of young people during the summer. "The gang, which is now dismantled, only travelled to Ibiza in summer to meet the large demand for drugs on the island during this period. "When some of the drugs were running short, other gangs based in the UK would send new batches via different methods." Miss Nieman, a nail technician at Nails To Be Seen in Warlingham, was holidaying with friends when she fell unconscious at the Space nightclub in the Playa d'en Bossa resort on July 13. She died of a suspected heart attack, with friends admitting to Spanish police they had taken ecstasy. But Croydon Coroner’s Court has ordered a second investigation into the cause of Miss Nieman’s sudden death. Miss Nieman’s mother Debbie and her partner Simon Atkar, along with her brother Mark, recently visited the island to see where the teenager had died and to bring her body home. Her funeral was held on August 16 at Croydon Crematorium but her mother discovered Spanish police had removed the girl’s heart for tests. The family have been told it could be six months until results of the tests, which might give a conclusive cause of death, come back.
Kicking in shop windows. Setting a police car on fire. Clashes with police. Tottenham? Hackney? Brixton? No. Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava. Last month police fired rubber bullets – but not at rioting Spaniards but at drunk foreigners. After two nights of riots that dragged on until the early hours, there were 20 injured, including nine police officers, and 20 arrests. Significantly – in a city of 40,000 with 25 discos, 261 bars and approximately a million tourists a year – all those detained were foreigners. Now, it’s only a small minority of Spanish resorts that have this problem with drunk foreigners and for every Lloret del Mar, there are hundreds of other resorts where peace reigns. But we have to remember that it was the British, after all, who created many of the bars and discos on the Costa Brava, not the Spanish. The exchange rates were low and everything was cheap. Freddy Laker organised cheap flights and Wallace Arnold cheap coach tours. In the late 60s, many hotels, bars, restaurants and nightclub/ discos were British-owned. The intention was to create a Blackpool with sunshine (and chip shops and … pubs). For decades it worked well but then, as in Blackpool, the clients changed. Spain, too, after the death of Franco. The Guardia Civil and local police lost some of their powers. Somehow the Spanish now need to strike a balance between tourism and civic order but the current economic climate makes that increasingly difficult. Binge drinking is definitely frowned upon and discouraged in the UK. But there’s a whole raft of British teenagers who leave what little common sense they have back at the airport and, when they touch down at some Spanish party town, immediately get blind drunk, in the belief they can get away with even more immoral/ anti-social behaviour abroad because ‘out of sight’ means ‘out of mind’. It’s these same people who get drunk on a Saturday night in English city-centres who go to Spain for longer and cheaper drinking hours. Some attribute this anti-social behaviour to a lack of discipline at all stages of a teenager’s development. British parents can’t smack young children, teachers can’t punish those who behave anti-socially and the UK police are tied up with human rights law. So, drunk teenagers believe they can carry on getting away with it. All of which could, unfortunately, go on longer than those DFS sales …
The recovered fake cash - Sant Antoni Police
Named with the initials J.G. he is charged with the crime of falsification of money and was arrested after he tried to use counterfeit notes to pay at a venue in the West End part of the town.
Local traders supplied the police with a description of the man who they finally tracked down. They recovered fake notes worth 1,100 pounds sterling and 1,310 €.
The Briton has been taken to the local police station in Sant Atoni and is expected to appear in court shortly.
The two are accused of stabbing a fellow Briton five times in a drug related argument.Photo EFE Two British men, 30 year old S.D., and 22 year old D.R.S., were arrested by the Guardia Civil in Sant Antoni, Ibiza, on Tuesday afternoon on charges of attempted murder. They are accused of stabbing a 19 year old Briton on Monday afternoon when arguing about a drug-related matter. Initial reports said that the victim was Irish, but he has now been named as Jack McCarthy from Liverpool. One of the five stab wounds punctured the victim’s lung, and a third saw a cut to his cheek. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that it was aware of a British citizen in hospital in Ibiza, and said that they were providing consular assistance. On Tuesday morning the youngster wanted to discharge himself, but the doctors advised the duty Guardia and they have kept him under treatment. A search of the homes of the two arrested men found 30 grams of cocaine and other substances, and an amount of money in cash, allegedly from the sale of drugs.
