Juan Antonio Roca allowed to walk away from jail in Málaga on bail of one million euros.

Juan Antonio Roca, who amassed a 200-million euro fortune after allegedly awarding building licences in exchange for money, has been on remand since his arrest on March 31, 2006.Now, magistrate Óscar Pérez will allow him to walk away from jail in Málaga on bail of one million euros.Fears...

Britons with homes on the Costas are among those at risk from a £3.5 billion campaign by the environment ministry

"The state is destroying property without any concern for the law or human rights," said Mr Ortega."This will affect more than 500,000 people along the coast in Spain, of whom up to 100,000 are foreigners, including thousands of Britons. It is illegal and totally unfair. We already...

Huelva Angry crowds shouted Asesino and hurled bottles and stones as the detainees

The first one breaking the orders from the police was the grandfather of Mari Luz, Juan José Fernandez, a fact that gave more strength to the protesters. ‘You criminal murderer, you have to pay for what you did! The prison is not enough for you!’ this was one of the various sayings...

Mari Luz’s father, Juan José, forced his way into Santiago del Valle’s home, on the same day that Mari Luz disappeared

El Mundo reports that several people from the neighbourhood, including Mari Luz’s father, Juan José, and some of her uncles, forced their way into Santiago del Valle’s home, taking some papers on the same day that the child had vanished, knocking down the door in search of the youngster....

Santiago del Valle García, imprisoned without bail by the judge in the Court of First Instance in Huelva charged with murder of Mari Luz

Santiago del Valle García, has been ordered to prison without bail by the judge in the Court of First Instance in Huelva on charges of murder of Mari Luz and and against sexual freedom.. The judge told him that he must also serve the two years and nine month sentence handed down...

Spanish police fired rubber bullets and clashed with protesters gathered outside a court Thursday in the town of Huelva for the arrival of two suspect

Spanish police fired rubber bullets and clashed with protesters gathered outside a court Thursday in the town of Huelva for the arrival of two suspects in the disappearance and death of a 5-year-old local girl.The crowds shouted «murderer» and hurled bottles and stones as the suspects _ a man and his sister _ arrived in a police van. Three police officers and two journalists were slightly injured. Two people were arrested.«I insist in asking people...

Violent attack in Benidorm ends in death

The suspect is a 42 year old Moroccan man and reports in Diario Sur say that several victims of theft have recognised the attacker in police identification parades.One of the alleged attacks from the 42 year old Moroccan led to the accidental death of a 77 year old German pensioner A 77 year old German pensioner, named with the initials J.G., has died from a blow he received during a violent robbery attempt in Torre del Mar on March 18. His body...

Five-hundred and seventy eight women have been murdered by their husbands or ex-husbands in Spain.

The ex boyfriend of a woman found dead in Asturias on Friday is reported to be in custody A man reported by Cadena Ser as an ex boyfriend has been arrested for the murder of Patricia Fernández Guzmán, whose burnt body was found dumped on an illegal rubbish tip near a disused mine...

The main suspect is named in reports as Santiago del Valle, who was a neighbour of the Cortés family until recently

Mari Luz´s father, Juan José Cortés, gave a press conference on Wednesday thanking officers for their work in the investigation into his daughter’s death, and commented that he would not wish the pain he suffered in the 54 days she was missing on anyone else, not even on ‘my daughter’s...

The parents of Mari Luz suspected this man from the first moment. Juan José Cortés, said this morning: “We know that it is him, we are sure, and this

The parents of Mari Luz suspected this man from the first moment. Juan José Cortés, said this morning: “We know that it is him, we are sure, and this is no surprise to me”One of the suspects of the death of Mari Luz confessed today to the Spanish police that the girl died in an accident,...

Lottery Scam’

14 Nigerians and 1 Chilean have been arrested by Police at Málaga following investigations into a ‘Lottery Scam’. Victims received letters, sometimes at their home address abroad, informing them they had won a lottery and were asked to supply bank details and a small ‘transfer fee’. Investigators have estimated that the proceeds from their joint operations could have exceeded six million euros in 12 months. As well as 43 mobile telephones and a quantity...

Santiago del Valle García convicted for child abuse and indecent assault on minors, and is already said to have confessed to Mari Luz's murder.

Santiago del Valle García, 52, has confessed to the murder of Mari Luz Cortés, according to news sources. He had already been questioned in Granada but was released for lack of proof. Santiago G. and his wife and sister, who had been neighbours of the Cortés family in Huelva, were...

Mari Luz Cortes Questions remain where Santiago del Valle Garcia was on the day Madeleine disappeared from her Algarve holiday flat.

The questions remain where was 52-year-old Spaniard Santiago del Valle Garcia was on the day Madeleine disappeared from her Algarve holiday flat. Garcia was detained yesterday in Portugal, on suspicion of killing five-year-old Mari Luz Cortes. Four people have been indicted in connection...

Moroccan customs officers have stepped up there hunt for drug smugglers in Tangiers

Moroccan customs officers have stepped up there hunt for drug smugglers in Tangiers, a short ferry hop from Europe's profitable shores.Smugglers coming through the northern port know they can't simply conceal their contraband under the floor or in the doors of their vehicle -- even...

Algerian gang based in Malaga

Suspects are thought to be responsible for more than 300 crimes, including robberies with violence at domestic properties, document falsification, drug trafficking, crimes using stolen credit cards and conspiracy. The Guardia targeted the suspects by studying documentation seized in several raids. The gang was identified as being made up of 14 Algerians, six Spanish, Four Morrocans and one French person. The gang was divided into three cells directed...

Operation Toroyano a fishing boat carrying drugs was intercepted close to the shoreline

Puerto de Mazarrón, a major case involves the alleged smuggling of huge quantities of drugs coming in from North Africa. The criminal activities are said to have involved drugs being carried by large vessels sailing up the Mediterranean. The drugs were then dropped off onto fishing boats which brought them into Puerto de Mazarrón. The network is said to have been operated by a Spanish-Moroccan group. In Operation Toroyano a fishing boat carrying...

luxurious hotels on Lanzarote are illegal

A third of the most luxurious hotels on Lanzarote are illegal, according to a string of recent court rulings that are expected to lead to at least some of them eventually being demolished.The rulings by the Canary Islands High Court affect 22 hotels and apartment hotels built under...

Moroccan Pirates sieze Spanish trawler?

Spanish authorities on Thursday launched a search for the two-man crew of a fishing trawler that has not been seen or heard from since setting sail for the Canary Islands from the southern Spanish province of Cádiz a week ago.José Quevedo, who bought the boat over the internet and...

Costa Destruction, Britons owning houses on the Spanish coast will have their homes demolished

Britons owning houses on the Spanish coast will have their homes demolished, it was claimed yesterday. The Spanish environment ministry last year announced an ambitious £3.5billion drive to protect the country's coastline from over-development by knocking down houses built illegally close to the shore. It insisted that there would be no widespread demolition of properties built before the relevant laws were passed. However, a campaign group set up...

Moroccan drug baron was jailed along with the former head of Tangier's judicial police after a lengthy trial

The dark green fern-like plant grows well in poor soil of the northern Rif mountains and has come to be known as "green gold" because it staves off grinding poverty for thousands of local families.Smugglers hide the drug in containers and trucks or use powerful speedboats to ship...

Allan Foster wanted for a gangland shooting on Tyneside has gone to the top of a Most Wanted list after becoming one of just two villains on the run

Allan Foster wanted for a gangland shooting on Tyneside has gone to the top of a Most Wanted list after becoming one of just two villains on the run from police on the Costa del Crime.Allan Foster is believed to have flown from his Spanish hideaway to assassinate David ‘Noddy’ Rice in South Shields in May 2006.Detectives believe Foster flew out of the country the day after the killing, which happened at a seaside car park near Marsden Grotto, and...

3.2 tons of cocaine were found in a swoop on an Elche warehouse

3.2 tons of cocaine were found in a swoop on an Elche warehouse in 2004 Sentencing has been released in the trial of the eight men charged after one of Valencia’s biggest ever drug hauls, three and a quarter tons of cocaine found in a lorry-load of bananas in the El Altet area of...

British man from South Shields was being held in a Spanish police cell last night

British man from South Shields was being held in a Spanish police cell last night, accused of trying to smuggle more than half a tonne of cocaine through the Mediterranean.The 50-year-old South Shields man, named only by his initials RPJ, was held after undercover officers from both...

Ola Brunkert bled to death after a shard of glass pierced his neck

Civil Guard headquarters in Madrid said: "All the indications are that this was a tragic accident. "A glass door in the kitchen of the house was shattered and it appears that this man fell through the door. "He then managed to get out into the garden where he died."Brunkert had been...

Swedish super-band ABBA's long-time drummer Ola Brunkert was found dead in his Mallorca, home over the weekend.

Swedish super-band ABBA's long-time drummer Ola Brunkert was found dead in his Mallorca, home over the weekend. Spanish police say the gruesome death was caused by a freak accident in which Brunkert bled to death after puncturing his throat with a broken piece of glass. According...

Gibraltar non co-operatation in Spain’s fight against money laundering

The government of Spain has requested has requested the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) to return Gibraltar to its list of non-cooperative off-shore financial services centre because of its ‘opacity’ and its location close to the Costa del Sol, as part...

Russian Mafia corrupt Marbella Police?

Inspectors Alfredo Marijuan and Carlos Farré from Marbella were detained following an investigation into alleged corruption of the elite Udyco force, which saw 40 officers questioned.both are members of the Costa del Sol’s crack anti-corruption police force have been arrested for...

Gibraltar to a blacklisted as an outlaw tax haven.

Spain is due to ask the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to return Gibraltar to a blacklist of tax havens that refuse to cooperate in fighting money laundering and other financial crimes, despite the British colony's promises of greater transparency. A spokesman for the Spanish tax office told EL PAÍS last week that the only fiscal information Spanish authorities receive from Gibraltar is "scarce and mostly useless," and...

Mariluz Cortes police to believe she was grabbed from behind

Police believe five-year-old was suffocated before being thrown into riverThe autopsy on the body of Mariluz Cortes shows the five-year-old died only hours after she went missing on January 13.Police recovered her badly decomposed body from a river estuary in Huelva on March 8 –...

200 vultures apparently killed a cow and its newborn calf on a farm near Villar de Peralonso

Colony of around 200 vultures apparently killed a cow and its newborn calf on a farm near Villar de Peralonso (Salamanca) yesterday lunchtime. It seems that the cow went into labour shortly before noon, but when the farmer returned to check on progress around two and a half hours...

Método 3 has said that some bones found in a plastic bag at the bottom of a lake in Portugal are not those of the missing British youngster Madeleine

The Spanish detective agency Método 3 has said that some bones found in a plastic bag at the bottom of a lake in Portugal are not those of the missing British youngster Madeleine McCann. The Portuguese Judicial Police confirmed that the bones are from a small animal.A search had been carried out in Arade reservoir all last week by seven divers who were working for the Portuguese lawyer, Marcos Aragao Correia. The lawyer has been working by himself...

Armed Robbery in Orihuela on Saturday night

Police in the Vega Baja are looking for three men responsible for a robbery at a petrol station near the district hospital in Orihuela on Saturday night and who left a member of staff seriously injured as they made their escape. The injured man, reported by the Información newspaper to be from Almoradí, was shot in the side and is now recovering after emergency surgery. It’s understood his life is not in danger.The robbery came after the owner had...

British man in Alicante arrested at a warehouse in Villajoyosa where he was waiting to receive drugs

The Interior Ministry gave news last Friday of an operation run jointly with Customs and police in Portugal which seized more than half a ton of cocaine in port in Lisbon and led to the arrest of a British man in Alicante.He was arrested at a warehouse in Villajoyosa where he was waiting to receive the drugs which reached port in Portugal in a cargo of nappies The Ministry said 514 kilos of the drug were discovered in a cargo of paper nappies from...

Roshan Jamal Khan detained in Spain

Roshan Jamal Khan was detained in Spain on January 19 and kept in jail since, accused of being an Al Qaeda-linked suicide bomber. Spain has not explained his crime. This despite the Indian Ministry of External Affairs writing to Spain in March first week that Roshan was “clean”.From her, it is difficult to get the story of how the ex-student of south Mumbai’s cosmopolitan St Xavier’s College, popular as a boxer, went on to be an olive trader before...

Alfredo Marijuán, Carlos Farré , Isaac Pacheco Suárez, Eusebio Vázquez Fernández have been charged

Alfredo Marijuán and Carlos Farré have been detained in custody and Isaac Pacheco Suárez and Eusebio Vázquez Fernández were released on bail.Four inspectors from an elite unit that combats organised crime in Malaga have been charged with bribery, embezzlement, dereliction of duty, ownership of illegal arms, and revealing confidential information. Forty officers have been questioned in connection with the case, which relates to alleged payments received...

William McFarlane with four other Englishmen arrested in Benidorm

five men arrested in a swoop on drugs and illegal gambling in Spain yesterday. William McFarlane, 56, from Glasgow, was taken into custody along with four Englishmen when police targeted a suspected drugs distribution and gambling den in the centre of Benidorm. Officers recovered £77,000 as well as a quantity of illicit drugs, prescription drugs and cigarett...

Armed Robbery in Sotogrande

There are renewed fears amongst residents of the luxury Sotogrande urbanisation in San Roque after yet another house raid, this time targeting a British family. In recent years the wealthy zone has been targeted by sophisticated criminal gangs. Sotogrande employs its own private security firm and both the Guardia Civil along with the local police have stepped up vigilance but seemingly without effect. The details of the latest robbery were revealed...

Madeleine McCann: Método 3 99% certain that the girl is dead, and that her body was thrown into the reservoir

"We found two bags, one of which contains some small bones."We don't know at this stage if they are human bones. If they are, they look like they come from a child's fingers. They are too small for an adult. I can't tell you how many we found, because we didn't count them. "As soon...