CRIME ON THE COSTAS is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.
Kyle Thain, 24, and James Harris, 29, have been released on bail from Font Calent jail in Alicante.This has left family members and friends overwhelmed – and they haven’t given up hope of getting them back to Britain for Christmas.Kyle’s brother Jay, 29, said: “This is the best I have felt in a long while. It’'s amazing news.”Sharon Harris, 56, Kyle’s mother, and husband Dave, 58, sold their Southend home to help fund the legal fight.Yesterday,...
Spanish savings bank has fired two directors and is investigating two former executives for allegedly syphoning off €20 million ($26.5 million) into secret pension funds, the bank said Saturday. The board of directors of Caixa Penedes bank had "required the departure" of its president, Ricard Pages, and director general Manuel Troyano. It said both men had agreed to leave, the bank said in a statement. The decision comes after state prosecutor...
National Police have found more than 550 kilos of cocaine hidden in boxes of ‘top quality bananas’ which were being introduced into Spain via the port in Algeciras. The drugs were hidden in the plastic linings inside the cardboard boxes containing the bananas, found in containers which had come from Ecuador. The drug runners benefitted by the quicker customs procedures for fruit. 11 people have been arrested in Madrid, including the alleged...
Police on the Costa del Sol were yesterday hunting a gang who stole £1million of cocaine from a warehouse where authorities held seized drugs before destroying them.The thieves used laser equipment to cut through the metal doors of the store in the docks at Malaga, the capital of...
A MAN has been sentenced to a year in prison for failing to pay a bill of more than €5,438 at a luxury Marbella hotel. He had been staying at the Marbella Club on the Golden Mile for a week in September 2003 and during the stay, used different services which amounted to €5,438, which he left without paying. The hotel made a formal complaint but the trial wasn’t held until this year mainly due to difficulties locating the man. He admitted...
300 kilos of cocaine was taken from a warehouse in Málaga portPhoto EFE Government sub-delegate for Málaga, Hilario Lopez Luna, has blamed the judges for the theft of 300 kilos of embargoed cocaine from a warehouse in Málaga port. He said that despite requests being made for authorisation to destroy the drugs, that permission had not arrived from the judges, and that was why there was so much drugs being stored. He said that the drugs taken...
The case started with the arrest of a mother in Vélez-Málaga who obliged her children to prostitute themselvesTwo groups which dedicated their time to the sexual abuse and exploitation of women have been broken up by Spanish police. The case resulted from a police investigation in Vélez-Málaga into two children who were obliged to prostitute themselves by their mother. A total of 20 arrests have been made in Málaga, Girona and Madrid, including...
British government bonds are attracting strong support, in sharp contrast to their troubled eurozone peers as investors seek a safehaven from a debt crisis now spreading to Italy, Spain and even France. British government bonds, or gilts as they are known, are in huge demand largely because the Bank of England is buying them up with newly-created money that it hopes can in turn be used to stimulate an anaemic economic recovery, analysts say....
The PP mayor of El Ejido in Almería, Francisco Góngora, has criticized the "negligence" of the former government team and announced that the city council are to begin legal proceedings against the promotions company who were to stage a concert by the Rolling Stones in 2006.Following...
SIX people have been arrested for their involvement with a gang which stole jewellery from elderly people. They are believed to be responsible for more than 120 robberies in 19 provinces throughout Spain, including Almeria, where some of the members were based. Around 450 pieces of jewellery have been recovered and will be exhibited at the Almeria Guardia Civil station for owners to identify. The way they operated was by one of them asking...
ONE of Europe’s most powerful hashish smugglers was arrested in Estepona, National Police said. The arrest of the 33-year-old man was part of an operation against drug traffickers based in Huelva in which more than 3,620 kilos of hashish were seized from a pneumatic boat at a shipyard in Isla Christina, Huelva. The two men on board were dressed as Guardia Civil officers so as not to arouse suspicion. They were arrested along...
FIVE members of a British family have been arrested for stealing 156,700 litres of diesel oil from a Malaga pipeline. The highly-organised team are alleged to have used their plumbing knowledge to puncture the pipe and set up hidden hoses leading to their rented finca in nearby Campanillas. In early October oil company CLH noticed a drop in pressure in the pipe supplying Malaga airport and filed a complaint with the Guardia Civil,...
MOROCCAN man who murdered his girlfriend by stabbing her 15 times on Nerja’s emblematic Balcon de Europa has apologised to the victim’s family. Hicham Bellasfer, 32, killed 25-year-old Argentinean Cecila Coria in the Nerja bar where she worked, in September 2008. Coria’s sister Vanessa responded to the apology by calling Bellasfer a ‘scourge on society’ before demanding a long senten...
AA First and the “Selfish” Program I shudder, shudder, shudder when I hear someone say AA is a selfish program. Back to the dictionary and the meaning of words. Selfish, the way it’s commonly used, means taking care of oneself only and without regard for others or to the detriment of others. The word selfish is used many times in the Big Book to mean just that, and it is presented as a bad thing. Not a good thing. It’s...
"A Selfish Program?" I can see why you are disturbed to hear some A.A. speakers say, "A.A. is a selfish program." The word 'selfish' ordinarily implies that one is acquisitive, demanding, and thoughtless of the welfare of others. Of course, the A.A. way of life does not at all imply such undesirable traits. What do these speakers mean? Well, any theologian will tell you that the salvation of his own soul is the...
The impounded drugs were taken over the weekend from a warehouse in Málaga port.Cocaine - Archive Photo EFE Hundreds of kilos of cocaine were stolen from Málaga port last weekend, and some reports speak of as much as 600 kilos.The drug had been impounded by the courts and the...
The man who was arrested for a fatal shooting in Mazarrón on Sunday night, killing one man and seriously injuring a 16 year old boy, was serving time in prison for another crime when it happened. It’s not yet clear if he was out on a pass from the prison or had escaped and was on the run. The news came from the central government delegate for Murcia, Rafael González, on Tuesday, who said that the un-named suspect, a man from Tarragona, will...
Bolivian man who has not been named died on Sunday night after being shot in the chest in Mazarrón, Murcia, and a second man was seriously injured by a shot to the head. Protección Civil say that local police from Manzarrón managed to arrest the alleged shooter, and the investigation has been passed on to the Guardia Civil under reporting restrictions. It happened in Avenida Constitutción at 11pm when several residents heard the shots and...
former police officer who admitted his part in a £365 million VAT fraud has been jailed for 10 years and three months. The conspiracy that Nigel Cranswick directed has taken the equivalent of 25 years of work to investigate, Judge Brian Forster said. The 47-year-old ex-South Yorkshire Police officer was a director of Ideas 2 Go, and, despite its modest base in a Sheffield business park, he claimed it bought and sold £2 billion worth...
Armed Naval and Gardai personnel with cocaine which was seized from a yacht off the west coast of Ireland A BLACKPOOL man has been arrested for allegedly being part of a £250m international cocaine smuggling racket. Police, acting under orders from the Serious Organised...
Foreign Office is urging Britons to remember that its services are reserved for people in real difficultly, and not for finding out Prince Charles' shoe size The Foreign Office has issued a reminder to Britons travelling and living abroad that embassies, high commissions and consulates exist to offer assistance to those in real difficultly, and are not 'concierge services'. To demonstrate their point the Foreign Office decided to reveal some...
holiday villa belonging to a Sevilla family was left in a heap of rubble after thieves stole it brick by brick. Gloria Moreno had a villa in the urbanization of Boticaria (Sevilla), near a luxury. Now he has nothing. They have stolen the building brick by brick. When the rafters were taken the ceiling came down and what was supposed to be a beautiful holiday home has become a pile of rubble. Her family bought the home ten years ago as a second...
42-year-old Rebels motorcycle gang member is one of three people being questioned by police after a search of his home in Calista, south of Perth. Police say they found a 22 calibre, self-loading handgun, cash, cannabis and a trafficable quantity of what they believe to be methamphetamine during this morning's search of the Edmund Road house. No charges have been laid at this stage. Gang Crime Squad detectives have also raided a home linked...
One of Birmingham’s ‘Most Wanted’ crooks is facing justice over a battle between rival bikers at the airport in which one man nearly died.Joseph Patrick John Lagrue handed himself in at Solihull police station in September after the brawl between members of the Hell’s Angels and...
Inaki Urdangarin - the husband of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia's youngest daughter Infanta Cristina - is suspected of misappropriating cash paid into an NGO.The former handball player now faces a possible interrogation by investigating judge Jose Castro and risks causing...
27 year old from Romania escaped to Spain after he was sentenced for the death of a woman who was killed in Portugal in 2005EFE archive Named by El Mundo newspaper as 27 year old Ioan R., he fled to Spain after a Portuguese court sentenced him to 15 and a half years in prison...
Nilo Case has reached court in Málaga, judging the largest ever swindle carried out mostly by Nigerians who sent out letters to try and capture their victims. Under the scam thousands of letters were sent from Málaga around the world, informing their recipients that they had won a prize in the Spanish lottery, and calling for them to pay a management fee so they could receive their winnings. There are 247 known victims of the fraud from Belgium...
The unidentified man - EFEThe Civil Guard have asked for help from the public in identifying a body which was found floating in the waters of Tarragona Port at the end of October.The deceased is a man aged between 55 and 65, 1.60 metres tall, with short greying hair and a beard....
A group of some twenty foreign residents of the Costa del Sol have denounced a fraud under which they could lose their homes. They have formed a platform to denounce a mortgage fraud which had the objective of getting large amounts of money which was then invested in financial havens such as Luxembourg or the Channel Islands. There were foreign victims, mostly all retired, along the entire Spanish coastline and on the islands, from the Costa...
Latin American man was arrested at his home in Girona on Thursday morning after telephoning emergency services to say he had killed his two year old daughter. His other daughter, aged six, was found with him at the family home on Calle Oviedo unhurt. She is understood to have been watching television when it happened. Her sister’s decapitated body was found lying on the bed when a medical team arrived at the property with police. The father...
Some of the drugs recovered. Photo - Civil GuardThe Civil Guard have arrested 18 members of a drugs network which had its main base in Bilbao and smuggled cocaine into the country from Colombia for sale on the Canary Islands.They used drug mules to bring the cocaine into Spain on...
The fine for not picking up dogs crap is raised in Marbella municipality up to 30.000 Euros. Around the street with lovely Marbella apartments, Marbella villas and property Marbella is it full with dog crap. Marbella municipal leaders want to strengthen measures to remove animal waste from the city streets. Therefore it has been assumed increased fines. . A first-time offense will be punishable by between 75 and 500 Euros in fines. Relapses...
62 people were arrested near Copenhagen on Tuesday following a clash between two rival gangs outside a courthouse where a gang member was on trial for the 2008 murder of a young Turk, police said. The people arrested in the Copenhagen suburb of Glostrup had "ties to gangs and bikers," a police statement said. Rival gangs have been battling for years over control of Copenhagen's illegal drug market. According to various media, close to 100...
These are the three brothers from hell -- two killers and one a suspected hitman. Two of the men, Eric and Keith Wilson from Ballyfermot in Dublin, are now suspected of being involved in over ten gun murders between them. Keith Wilson (23) was today beginning a life term in jail for the gangland execution of hitman-for-hire Daniel Gaynor in August, 2010. His brother Eric 'Lucky' Wilson (27) is serving 23 years in a Spanish prison for the...
