Belgian couple spot the men who stole their car in Belgium on a Spanish beach

 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...

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Major heroin haul in Algeciras

 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...

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Ex Ronda Mayor released on bail in corruption case

 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...

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UK pressure group set up to help Spanish property victims

 While there are similar groups already in existence in Spain, this group is the first of its kind in the UK and aims to raise awareness and pressure the UK Government and MEPs into taking action. Many thousands of Britons are believed to have bought property in Spain and through the actions of various levels of Spanish government, property developers and banks, find themselves unable to enjoy the rights to these properties. The Protection of Property Purchased in Europe (POPPIE) is run by husband and wife team Chris and Angela Beattie, who...

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Irish expat charged with prostitutes' murder in Spain

 The 42-year-old man, who is believed to be Irish, was arrested near his home in the resort of Mijas Costa, near Marbella on Spain's southern coast on Friday. The suspect's girlfriend and her mother were also being held over possible involvement in the serial slayings. Police suspect him of stabbing two prostitutes to death, the first in August and the second a month later. The killer was dubbed the "10 murderer" because both women were killed on the tenth of the month. The first woman, said to be 45 years old and of Argentine origin, was...

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Blasts hit ex-home of Franco-era politician

 A Spanish official says two homemade explosive devices detonated outside the childhood home of Manuel Fraga, the last surviving member of the regime of Gen. Francisco Franco. No one was hurt. An official with the Interior Ministry office in Lugo province in northwest Spain says Monday's blasts broke windows and damaged the facade of the house, which is being turned into a museum by the conservative Popular Party, which Fraga founded. The devices were composed of explosive power of the kind used to make fireworks and butane gas canisters...

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Spanish police hold suspected 'Irish serial murderer'

 SPANISH police were last night reported to be holding an Irishman on suspicion of stabbing two women to death in their Costa del Sol homes. Leading Spanish TV station Telecinco described the suspect as Irish. Last night speculation was mounting that detectives were treating him as a suspected serial killer and looking to link him to a series of other unsolved murders across the country. Detectives established a link between the deaths of two women reported to have worked as prostitutes advertising their services through papers. A 45-year-old...

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El Hierro prepares for a possible volcanic eruption

 Canary Island of El Hierro is preparing for a possible volcanic eruption as the Canaries have lifted the alert level to yellow for the first time in the recent history of the archipelago following a group of ever-stronger earthquakes. Saturday night saw a 3.4 quake among a total of 48 seen over the weekend. The fear is that there could be a possible volcanic eruption on the island of El Hierro, but the Councillor for Security, María del Carmen Morales, called for calm. ‘These seismic movements are normal given that we are on a yellow alert...

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Canadian gold diggers look to Coruña

 Canadian company, Edgewater Exploration, are to reopen an old gold mine in Coruña and say they will employ 100 people in Cabanas de Bergantiños in the efforts to extract a million ounces of the metal. An ounce of gold is currently 1,800 € on the market. The Las Médulas mines have a long and distinguished past, and were responsible for ten percent of the Roman empire, as 96,000 kilos of gold was taken over 250 years as the Romans used thousands of slaves to find the metal. The new gold fever is the first in the area for 2,000 years. Despite...

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Two British swimmers cross the Strait

 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 coa...

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Arrested man admits to killings on the Costa del Sol

 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,...

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FALKLANDS war veteran went on a lavish £1million spending spree after ripping off two gangsters

 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...

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Owner of marijuana plantation caused Ibiza fire by negligence

 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...

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Ten Britons arrested in new Ibiza raid against drug traffickers

 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,...

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Detectives suspect possible serial killer in two murders on the Costa del Sol

 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...

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FIVE HUNDRED MARIJUANA PLANTS FOUND BY BOMBERAS

 Firefighters discovered five hundred marijuana plants on Sunday when they entered a house in Jacarilla to attend a fire. According to sources from the emergency services, the two-storey building was empty when emergency staff arrived at the scene. The Civil Guard is now trying to locate the owner. The marijuana plants were fitted with an irrigation system and lighting for easy cultivation and a spokesman suggested that the flames could have been caused by an electrical short caused by excessive energy consumption. The Bomberas reported that...

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Spanish custom officers seize cigarette packs

 SPANISH customs officers in La Linea de la Concepción seized 2,848 packets of cigarettes last weekend, according to press reports. Contraband tobacco was found hidden in three vehicles crossing the border into Spain from Gibraltar. In a fourth case, the bag of a person walking by the Levante area was searched and was found to be carrying 1,000 packets of contraband tobac...

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Brits arrested for drug trafficking on the Baleares

  The Organised Crime Squad ECO of the Guardia Civil based on Mallorca completed the second part of an operation against drug trafficking on Sunday. The first part of the operation had been started at the end of August. At that time ten Britons were arrested and on Sunday the ECO agents picked up another ten youngsters of the same nationality. Judicial sources say that seven of the ten were sent to prison in Eivissa, on remand, while two...

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Marrakesh bomb trial to resume

 The trial in Morocco of nine suspects in a bomb attack in April that killed 17 people, mainly European tourists, is set to resume on Thursday with bereaved relatives in attendance. The main suspect, 25-year-old Adil El-Atmani, and his accomplices face the death penalty if proven guilty. The trial opened on June 30 but was then adjourned to August 18 and further postponed to September 22 in order to allow the plaintiffs to prepare their case. "So far the trial is taking place in normal conditions. The judicial guarantees are there and personally,...

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Moroccan cops seize Scot caught with £500k of cannabis resin

 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...

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Why some Harley Davidson bikes are 'too American' for Spain

 The Spanish traffic authorities have impounded hundreds of second hand Harley Davidson motorbikes which had been imported from the United States as they are ‘too American’. Hundreds of Spanish owners of the bikes are angry that they cannot remove them from the Guardia Civil barracks where they are being stored as it has been determined that the bikes do meet the Spanish official approval level. Only the Harleys which are sold via official dealers in Spain are being considered to meet the homologación official. An association has been formed...

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British man arrested in Martorell facing paedophile charges

 British man has been arrested in Martorell, near Barcelona, accused to taking photographs of and abusing youngsters in the locality. The complaint against him was made by a shop owner who saw how the man was taking photographs of his children in his shop. Closed circuit television in the shop confirmed the behaviour of the suspect who visited the shop every day and who told the children how to pose, including showing their underwear. The shop owner also alleges that touching took place. The 54 year old Briton has not been named in reports,...

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Smuggler Tosses Passengers Off Jet Ski

 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...

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Spanish-based Seven guilty of 'boiler-room' fraud

 Seven men were convicted today of an £8 million boiler-room fraud, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said. The Spanish-based operation targeted thousands of investors in the UK applying high pressure telesales techniques to push shares in a bio-diesel company, Worldwide Bio Refineries (WBR). In fact, the company was practically worthless. One defendant, company director Redmond Johnson, 66, pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud investors. Fellow director Dennis Potter, 72, who lived in Singapore, was convicted of the conspiracy along with...

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Spain killer bull named 'Mouse' wins fame, infamy

 3,000 fans cheering, a hulking, black-and-white fighting bull named "Mouse" chased one daredevil runner after another, trying to flip them airborne and skewer them as he did a month ago in a fatal goring that enshrined his reputation as Spain's most feared and famous beast. Mouse was greeted in the southeastern farm town of Sueca like a rock star: Everyone stood up at 2 a.m. Sunday in the bull ring's grandstands as he charged across the sand after loudspeakers introduced him with the eerie strains of the soundtrack to "The Good, The...

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Christy Kinahan offered €60,000 to have him whacked

 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...

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Three Britons face a total of 27 years in prison for drug trafficking

 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...

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Spanish police said their criminal assets agency was investigating properties worth millions including a holiday resort in Brazil.

 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...

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Marbella Casino board face charges of document falsification

 TWELVE of the Marbella Casino’s 14-strong board face charges of document falsification. The Casino, one of the town’s oldest but with no links to the Casino de Marbella in Nueva Andalucia, has been at the centre of internal conflict for several years. Differences over renting out of part of its La Alameda installation to a restaurant business resulted in the sacking of the Casino’s former president Antonio Ric and ex-secretary Manuel Porras in April 2010. Both started legal proceedings against the remaining board members, claiming...

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Germany's top representative on the European Central Bank resigned in an apparent protest of the bank's recent interventions in euro-zone debt markets

Germany's top representative on the European Central Bank resigned in an apparent protest of the bank's recent interventions in euro-zone debt markets, dealing a severe blow to an institution struggling to retain its credibility amid the region's worsening debt crisis.Jürgen Stark is stepping down "for personal reasons," the ECB said in a statement. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet "wholeheartedly" thanked Mr. Stark for his tenure at the ECB, the...

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Kicking in shop windows. Setting a police car on fire. Clashes with police. Tottenham? Hackney? Brixton? No. Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava.

 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...

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Brit was arrested in Sant Antoni, Ibiza

The recovered fake cash - Sant Antoni PoliceLocal police in Sant Antoni, Ibiza, say that a British man has been arrested in connection with counterfeit money.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...

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Two Britons arrested on Ibiza on charges of attempted murder

 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...

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Doctor serves six months in prison because of his grandmother's mothballs

 mistaken positive in a drugs test carried out at Barajas Airport in Madrid has resulted in a Panamanian doctor, Juan Rodríguez Lizondro, to be imprisoned in Madrid for six months. The customs authorities and Guardia Civil declared that his 19 kilos of clothes had been impregnated with cocaine, while the doctor claimed they had detected his grandmother’s camphor. The reported conversation at the time was.... ‘It smells strange – what’s it got?’ ‘I don’t know. I live with my grandmother. She irons my clothes with starch, and then puts it...

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