Almost crime free

Almost crime free, although Eastern Europeans are now featuring in crime reports for petty crime to drug dealing. Criminals, specially violent ones, severely punished and can made to pay damages to victims by Criminal Courts (no need to go civil). This is one reason why for crime is very low. In Andalucia (Costa del Sol), about 50% of jail inmates are foreigners and this is expected to increase when new States are in the EU. However, problems expected with new EU entrants countries are occurring. But this will be universal throughout the EU, and the Spanish police's hands are "not tied" with political correctness

The 'British in Spain' achieved notoriety during the 1980s

The 'British in Spain' achieved notoriety during the 1980s. As a group they were stereotyped as being made up of exiled criminals, drunken hooligans and inward looking pensioners - unwelcome colonisers reconstructing their own insular 'little England'. The British on the Costa del Sol presents a more complex picture.

armed Spanish police raided a cocaine-laden trawler

When armed Spanish police raided a cocaine-laden trawler on the high seas late last month, just one member of the smuggling gang was onboard. But police knew exactly where to look for the foreigners linked to the $400 million haul. The ringleaders, a Brit and two Irishmen, were arrested back on the Costa del Sol.

If organized crime is a globalized business these days, then Spain could be its European headquarters. More than 60 percent of the cannabis that enters the continent, as well as half the cocaine, is believed to pass through Spanish territory. And for a concentration of villainy there's nowhere to beat the Costa del Sol, a sun seekers' paradise that doubles as a mobsters' trading post. Local media cite an Interpol estimate that the region is now home to 18,000 foreign criminals of 70 nationalities. Shady services on offer range from arms trafficking to prostitution and money laundering. "This is the center of crime for Europe and maybe the whole world," says Wensley Clarkson, a British crime writer who spends six months of the year at his home near Marbella, the Costa's principal resort. "It's a combination of Chicago in the 1930s and Miami in the 1990s."

The Costa's international allure presents an awesome challenge to crime busters. With 320 days of sunshine and more golf courses per head than anywhere else in the world, it pulls in the largest and richest mix of expats and holidaymakers in Europe. In its polyglot world, British residents number about 350,000, Swedes run their own newspaper and restaurant menus can be found in Russian. Where better for a foreign mobster to escape police attention or do business than among a year-round crowd of 8 million visitors? "Invisibility and anonymity are part of the problem," says Per Stangeland, a criminologist at the University of Malaga.

But the Costa's clinching criminal charm is location. Morocco, which supplies most of Europe's cannabis, is just 30 kilometers across the Mediterranean, and not far away the tiny British colony of Gibraltar makes a fat living as a tax haven and money laundry. "The Costa del Sol is a crossroads," says Letizia Paoli, an expert on organized crime at the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg, Germany. Add some historical ties with Latin America—think of the Colombian cocaine trade—and some tricky extradition laws, and it's easy to see why the Costa has become a bolt-hole known to the British tabs as the "Costa del Crime."

Up to now, the authorities have often looked away—or collaborated. Crime and tourism have combined to bring unprecedented prosperity. A booming construction industry has provided a perfect outlet for cleansing dirty money. Inevitably, that's tainted local politics. The sprawling developments that cover vast stretches of hillside testify to officials' willingness to overlook zoning regulations in return for backhanders. The 12-year term of Marbella's former mayor, Jesus Gil, who died last year, ended in a flurry of fraud and corruption scandals as well as a stint in jail.

CRIMINAL gangs are targeting British homeowners on the Spanish costas

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.”

Interpol estimated last year that the Spanish costas are home to 18,000 foreign criminals

ESCAPING JUSTICE
# Spain’s extradition treaty with Britain collapsed in 1978. High-profile criminals found that they could easily disappear, even after the treaty was reinstated in 1985

# The “Costa del Crime” earned its name in 1983 when the thieves behind the £6 million Security Express robbery were spotted leading luxurious lives on the Spanish coast

# Interpol estimated last year that the Spanish costas are home to 18,000 foreign criminals of 70 nationalities, including the Russian mafia and armed gangs from Albania, Kosovo and the former Soviet republics

# The civil guard in Málaga, the regional capital, has admitted lacking the resources to check each of the 15,000 Interpol inquiries received annually concerning European criminals being sought in the area

# Last year authorities in Marbella cracked down on money-laundering gangs. They arrested 41 people, froze €400 million of funds and seized a yacht, two private planes, 251 houses and 42 cars

# In June 2005 three British men were arrested in an undercover operation near Marbella that smashed Europe’s biggest cocaine-smuggling ring worth £360 million

Costa Crims

Nazi war criminals

One of the most wanted Nazi war criminals may have fled the Costa Brava for another area of Spain or Denmark to escape an intense search by Spanish police.
Investigators believe that Aribert Heim, a concentration camp doctor, now 91, who injected hundreds of prisoners with lethal cocktails at Mauthausen in Austria, may have already fled to the Costa del Sol, in southern Spain, or Denmark, according to local press reports.

Spain's organised crime and fugitive units have conducted "dozens" of searches in the Costa Brava after receiving a tip from German police, the newspaper El Mundo reported. He is thought to have lived in the resort town of Roses for years. In June, police hoped he would surface to celebrate his 91st birthday.

Wilkins became persona non grata with the now suspicious British criminal fraternity in Spain.

Wilkins was also suspected of informing on Kenneth Noye, who went on the run after the 1996 M25 "road-rage" murder of Stephen Cameron. Noye stayed at Wilkins's villa. He was arrested shortly after he bought a villa near Cadiz and moved out.

Wilkins was spending a lot of his time on the Costa del Sol and neighbouring Gibraltar, organising frauds.

The remarkable tale begins in 1992 when Wilkins escaped from a low- security prison in East Anglia where he was serving 10 years for drugs smuggling. He emerged a few months later in southern Spain on the "Costa del Crime", where he was approached by one of the Yard's top undercover detectives to help set up the sting.

The idea was that Wilkins, well-connected in the murky British expatriate underworld, would introduce cops posing as dodgy businessmen to major crime figures operating in Spain and Gibraltar. They would be lured into trusting their ill-gotten gains to a money- laundering scheme that was really a police "front".
It was the beginning of a five-year operation that snared dozens of people accused of laundering money from drugs and tobacco smuggling rackets. But it has resulted in years of legal wrangling and appeals over the use of entrapment.

Last Monday the key case against 10 men was thrown out at Southwark Crown Court after 414 days in court, with the judge denouncing the sting as "massively illegal".

But the failed sting is only the most recent controversy surrounding Wilkins, whose Houdini-like ability to evade jail has caused the underworld to suspect him of being an MI6 and police informant. This ubiquitous south Londoner is said to have "grassed up" the M25 road-rage killer, Kenneth Noye, and to have had an underhand role in the 1989 Death on the Rock affair in which three IRA members were gunned down by the SAS in cold blood while travelling through Gibraltar.

It is now even suggested that the authorities "helped" Wilkins abscond from prison and that he has been given some kind of immunity to stay in Spain in return for acting as an informant.

At 6ft 3in tall, Joe Wilkins is a larger-than-life character. A good- looking man, affecting Michael Caine style glasses, he was married for a time to the glamorous dancer Pearl Read who later modelled in her bra, at the age of 56, as part of Age Concern's 1998 advertising poster campaign.

In 1972 Wilkins, at the centre of Soho turf wars, was shot at his office by a rival gangster. He took two bullets, but survived. By the mid 1980s, Wilkins was spending a lot of his time on the Costa del Sol and neighbouring Gibraltar, organising frauds.

Michael “Danser” Ahern

Spain, the gateway for much of the drug traffic into Europe, has long been a prime destination for Irish drug dealers
Michael “Danser” Ahern, was found dead last year in Portugal, shot five times in the head and frozen by his killers in order to dismember his body, prompting an investigation by police in Ireland, Portugal, Spain, the UK and the Netherlands.

A 43 year old British man, named as William Moy, was shot dead in the street in Marbella on Friday night.

The victim was shot five times outside ‘The Point’ – a club in Nueva Andalucia. He was dead on the arrival of the emergency services.

The victim had a criminal record in the U.K. and is reported to have been linked to several crimes in Spain.

Police currently have several theories about the motive and who could have been responsible.

"God of the Costa del Sol", the late playboy and Marbella mayor Jesús Gil y Gil.

It was supposed to epitomise luxury, prosperity and power. Instead, it became a symbol of the heady mix of excess and corruption which for too long was synonymous with Marbella, Spain's glittering city of fun.

The Rolls-Royce Shining Spur was the pride and joy of the self-proclaimed "God of the Costa del Sol", the late playboy and Marbella mayor Jesús Gil y Gil.

Gil thought nothing of demanding that his taxpayers fork out for the £170,000 car which transported him to every civic function, "like a Pharaoh" as locals put it. But now, three years after his death, his Rolls has – like his corrupt reign – lost its allure. The car will be put up for auction later this year in an effort to draw a line under a long and seedy chapter in the city's history.

Gil was the overweight, foul-mouthed supporter of the former dictator General Franco who ruled Marbella for seven years until he was finally ousted for corruption. He had diverted £20m of public funds to finance the football team he owned, Atletico Madrid. He died in 2004.

Sex is out in the open and men often go with prostitutes every night of the week

British mother and daughter Ingrid and Rachel O'Leary are both prostitutes on Spain's Costa del Sol. But neither feels their life of vice is sordid or risky - and they love the riches they've earned.

'We're more like sisters than mother and daughter,' says Surrey- born Ingrid, 43. 'We like hanging out together and we prefer it when we work as a pair. It's our choice to work in this game.'

Her daughter Rachel, 26, explains, 'Our punters are just like everyone else out here. You get some nice ones, a lot of dull ones and a few bast*rds, but if we're together, there's less chance of any aggro.'


Ingrid moved out to Estepona, near Marbella, two years ago after working as a call girl through a number of London escort agencies. 'There are too many girls flocking to London from all over the world, so there isn't enough work,' says Ingrid. 'Out here, though, it's different. Sex is out in the open and men often go with prostitutes every night of the week. It must be something to do with the sunshine.'

Former estate agent Ingrid and her daughter first 'teamed up' as prostitutes when Rachel came to stay with her mother in Spain six months ago. 'I'd been running a brothel and wanted to go back to prostitution,' says Ingrid. 'Rachel's husband had just left her, she was living in a crummy flat in south London, and Spain seemed a much better option. I've always been close to Rach because it's often been her and me against the world.

Elvis seen in Puerto Banus

Elvis Presley is having a grand time. He is cuddling up to tipsy girls and giving them individual verses of Return to Sender as they blush, squeal and make half-hearted attempts to escape. "Hey, baby, what's your name?" he groans, and they automatically reply: Kelly, Alise, Leanne. Elvis is, of course, an impersonator, but a very fine one; if he weren't black, Portuguese and as skinny as a rake in his baggy white jumpsuit, he could almost pass for the real thing.
Jesús Flores, owner of Ocean's 11, the Marbella bar where Elvis performs every Friday night, believes he's lucky to have him. "I couldn't do the bar without music. It wouldn't be as successful." A crawl around the nearby bars - none of which offers live music - confirms it. They're quieter than you would expect, given it is a balmy July night and the moon is turning the Costa del Sol seafront into an Athena postcard. Meanwhile, Ocean's 11 is buzzy and flirty, and, happily for Flores's bar takings, most of the drinkers are young and British.

In April 2005, he was arrested by police in Sotogrande, Spain and on April 2nd 2007 he was found guilty of running one of the most sophisticated and s

Brian Brendan "The Milkman" Wright is an Irish criminal involved in fixing horse races by doping more than 20 race horses in 1990 as well as a drug trafficker who is estimated to have smuggled 3 tons of cocaine into Great Britain over a period of two years. Originally based in Britain, he had been out of the country when authorities began arresting members of his organization (including his own son, Brian Jr and former son in law, Paul S) as the result of a six year investigation resulting from the capture a converted fishing trawler, the Sea Mist, after Irish customs officials discovered 599kg of cocaine while docked at Cork, Ireland in September 1996. Nicknamed "The Milkman" because he always delivered.

Eventually relocating to northern Cyprus, he purchased a £300,000 villa near occupied Lapithos in the name of a Turkish Cypriot friend and, by 1998, his organization operated freely as the northern Cyprus government is recognized only by Turkey and thus has no extradition treaties with any other country.

In 2002, British authorities announced the capture of a top member of his organization, South African drug trafficker Hilton John Van Staden, who eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to smuggle drugs into the country with customs officials claiming the destruction of Wright's organization.


On April 2nd 2007, after an 11 year investigation, he was found guilty of running an international cocaine smuggling empire. The following day he was sentenced to 30 years and according to his lawyers, had accepted he will die in jail.

Brian Brendan Wright, alias "The Milkman"

Spanish authorities announced that they had arrested one of the United Kingdom's most wanted criminals: Brian Brendan Wright, alias "The Milkman" in recognition that he always delivered.

Wright fled British law after being linked to one of that country's biggest drug-smuggling operations, as well as horse race fixing. He was last seen over 10 years ago in Cyprus.

flamboyant Chilean attorney Fernando del Valle Vergara. Del Valle

At the center of the investigation is the flamboyant Chilean attorney Fernando del Valle Vergara. Del Valle and 10 of his staff were originally arrested. Press reports have stated that Del Valle´s Marbella law firm is called DVA. That has led Madrid attorney, Javier del Valle Sánchez - no relation to the Fernando del Valle - to issue a statement that his law firm 'Del Valle Abogados S.L.', and which also uses the letters DVA, has no relation to the firm in Marbella.

Fernando del Valle arrived on the Marbella real estate scene in the late 1970s - early 1980s, after a brief stint practicing law in Madrid. In the coming years Del Valle, an aficionado of fine food and classical music, would become a key player in the booming real estate market in the southern coast of Spain.

It was no secret that something wicked was scratching at the underbelly of Spain's Costa del Sol.

The sunny southern stretch of beaches branded "the Coast of Crime" is a hedonist's paradise. It is the summer residence of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, and place where jet setters and "beautiful people" arrive by the scores, its harbors brim with yachts and buckets of cash exchange hands.

It has also been an open secret that in the regional capital of Marbella much of that money comes from the seedy-side of life, linked to speculating in real estate, or dirtier crimes, such as extortion, contract murders, car-thefts, arms and drugs trafficking and prostitution. It is suspected that much of those ill-gotten gains were sent to offshore accounts. Once laundered, funds then entered back into the Spanish real estate market, as characterized by property promotions changing hands multiple times before the first habitant opened the door. In other words, real estate promotions were sold, and resold, various times - and each time the price rising - without a "physical" owner ever taking possession of the keys.

As a sign of the international crime element an Interpol report notes: "There is an exceptionally large number of Estonian and Russian professional criminals carrying out, besides a large scale hashish and cocaine trafficking, remarkable sex business in the numerous hotels and restaurants of Costa del Sol." Meanwhile, according to Online Security, "Italian crime groups' longtime investments in real estate and entertainment enterprises--particularly gambling casinos--in Germany, France, Monaco, Spain's Costa del Sol, and the Caribbean are conduits for money laundering."

Still, what was not known – or at least officially recognized – was on how large a scale international organized crime was using this playground for the rich and famous as Europe’s money laundering capital.

THE 42-YEAR-OLD ITALIAN WHO WAS ASSASSINATED LAST WEEK IN MARBELLA HAD BEEN DEPORTED FROM SPAIN TO ITALY IN 2002 TO FACE DRUG CHARGES AND WAS DUE TO A

These details were released by the government’s sub-delegate in Málaga, Hilario López Luna, after the man, Vincenzo M., died from his injuries in the intensive care unit of Marbella’s Costa del Sol hospital. He had received a single shot to the head while walking in the area between the Playa Esmeralda and Coral Beach urbanizations about one kilometre from Puerto Banús.

A man on a red motorcycle had driven up to the Italian, stopped his bike and then, without any exchange of words, fired the single shot in to his head. The killer then raced off, heading in the direction of Marbella.
Sr López Luna stated that police believe the killing was another so-called ‘settling of accounts’ between drug traffickers. The victim was from southern Italy but was officially registered as a resident of Marbella, where he lived with other members of his family.

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