MALAGA GAZETTE

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Three people have been arrested in Almonte, Huelva, for allegedly building on protected land close to the Doñana Nature Park.

Posted On Saturday, January 31, 2009 0 comments

Three people have been arrested in Almonte, Huelva, for allegedly building on protected land close to the Doñana Nature Park.The buildings were to have been used for rural tourism, but the German owners of the land, the two German and Austrian promoters of the project in Alto de las Niñas, are now being held. A judicial order has taped up the site and the two buildings, built to host six beds in one and stables for 14 horses in another. A neighbouring villa and warehouse are also considered to have been built illegally.


Drug smuggling gang which trafficked in hashish have been arrested by National Police and Guardia Civil in Valencia and Murcia.

Posted On Saturday, January 31, 2009 0 comments



Drug smuggling gang which trafficked in hashish have been arrested by National Police and Guardia Civil in Valencia and Murcia. The gang brought the drug over from Morocco using yachts and recreational boats. 25 people have been arrested Police say they started their operation in March last year and over its four phases have arrested 25 people and recovered nearly 7,000 kilos of the drug, as well as two firearms, three boats and six vehicles. The drug was usually brought into sports marinas in Spain although sometimes it was transferred at sea onto fishing boats.


Italian Mafia in Spain

Posted On Saturday, January 31, 2009 1 comments




Italian Mafia in Spain. Twelve capos have been arrested in the past three months, forcing police to admit that the Camorra and N’drangheta from Calabria and the Sicilian Mafia are now a very real presence on the Iberian peninsula.Many come to Spain attracted by the opportunity to deal cocaine or to launder millions of euros through property. Others hope to escape the unwelcome attention of Italian investigators and Carabinieri by blending into the established Italian communities in Spain.A growing awareness among Spanish judicial authorities about the organised criminals has forced police to cooperate with their Italian counterparts.Among those arrested in Spain are Francesco Simeoli, Patrizio Bosti, Raffaele Laurenti, Mario Santafede, Marco Assegnati, and one of the Camorra “soldiers”, Paolo Pesce.General Gaetano Maruccia, the head of the Neapolitan Carabinieri, said: “There are many camorristas in Spain. Some deal in drugs, others are fugitives. They know the terrain, they invest in construction and have highly efficient companies which allow them to launder money from extortion and drugs.” Barcelona, with its large Italian population, has proved popular with Mafia bosses who want to disappear. Salvatore Zazo, 52, was arrested near La Sagrada Familia, Antoni GaudÍ’s unfinished Modernist church, earlier this month.Zazo was the boss of the Mazzarella clan within the Camorra and was wanted for trafficking cocaine between Colombia and Naples. Within the Camorra there are up to 80 clans; Zazo negotiated drug deals between three of them, authorities said.A source at the Catalan regional police told The Times: “These capos are coming to Barcelona because there is a large Italian population and they can disappear easily or they can operate more easily. It is also quite close to Italy – and the weather is quite nice, which is important.” Roberto Saviano, the Italian journalist behind the bestselling book and film Gomorrah, about the Neapolitan Mafia, said that Spain has long been regarded by the Camorra as a crucial part of its criminal empire.


Thursday, January 29, 2009

Marbella businessman Fernando Moreno died during the bungled kidnapping and ransom attempt.

Posted On Thursday, January 29, 2009 0 comments


Marbella businessman Fernando Moreno died during the bungled kidnapping and ransom attempt. It’s taken just six days for the National Police to establish what happened, with the arrest of one of the accused on Monday and a second on Tuesday, resulting in the case being solved yesterday, according to Diario Sur newspaper. The Interior Minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalbaba, has congratulated the force on their rapid solution of the case.One of the accused is an ex employee of Fernando Moreno, and was aware of his worth and daily routine. He made an agreement with a Colombian friend to carry out an express kidnapping to obtain money, and they joined forces with two more Colombians to carry out their plan, initially asking for two million €, an amount which fell to 600,000 €. The precise circumstances of the victim’s death remain unclear, although the autopsy revealed the 76 year old died from suffocation, it’s still unclear whether his death was intentional or accidental.


more than a million flats for sale currently in Spain, forecast is they will take three years to sell at a 30% discount

Posted On Thursday, January 29, 2009 0 comments

Price of housing in Spain has to fall a further 30% for the market to adjust as needed, according to a study by the Confederation of Spanish Savings Banks, FUNCAS. The report defends the lack of credit coming from the banks, describing the closing of the tap as ‘absolutely rational’.The study showed that there are more than a million flats for sale currently across the country, and forecast they will take three years to sell.The study was presented by José García Montalvo, an economics professor at the Pompeu Fabra university in Barcelona, who said that prices had to fall a total of between 40% and 50% since the real estate bubble burst at the end of 2007 and start of 2008. Property prices so far had only fallen between 8% and 10% he said.He also claimed that there were many ‘sub-prime’ clients in Spain, and said he had seen credits awarded to people who had no credit record obtaining 100% mortgages with monthly payments of more than 40% of their income.


Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Body of San Pedro de Alcántara businessman, Fernando Moreno, was found bound and gagged close to the Istán road.

Posted On Wednesday, January 28, 2009 0 comments

Body of San Pedro de Alcántara businessman, Fernando Moreno, was found bound and gagged close to the Istán road .Nine who were close to the 76 year old Marbella businessman, Fernando Moreno Espada, have been brought in for questioning by the police as they investigate his death during an express kidnapping attempt last week.
Searches have been carried out in several homes in Urbanisation La Campana, San Pedro Marbella, Torremolinos and Málaga, and more arrests have not been ruled out.
It’s understood that of the nine detained yesterday now only two remain in custody. Some of those detained are reported to be foreigners, but their nationality has not been revealed. Reporting restrictions remain in force in the case.Diario Sur reports this morning that one of held is an ex employee of the victim.


largest bust of a euro counterfeiting ring ever. Euros were tracked out of Italy to Spain

Posted On Wednesday, January 28, 2009 0 comments

Italian police conducted an early- morning dragnet across the country to round up more than 100 people in what they described as the largest bust of a euro counterfeiting ring ever. About 700 of Italy’s Carabinieri police together with Rome’s anti-counterfeiting squad carried out 96 arrests in nine regions of the country. A total of 109 arrest warrants were issued. Four laboratories for printing fake euro bills and minting phony coins were discovered, and 1.2 million euros ($1.6 million) was sequestered during the investigation, police said. “This is the biggest operation ever conducted against euro counterfeiters,” Colonel Carlo Pieroni, who participated in this morning’s arrests, said in a telephone interview from Reggio Calabria. “This was a cartel set up to make and distribute fake money nationally and internationally.” The bills were tracked out of Italy to Spain, Germany and Lithuania, according to a statement. The investigation began in 2005 as a probe into mafia drug trafficking, Pieroni said, and the main counterfeiting activities were carried out in areas where the ‘Ndrangheta and Camorra mafias operate. The European Commission Anti-Fraud Office, or Olaf, and the European Central Bank took part in the investigation.
“Today’s operation again shows how multifaceted the Calabrian mafia is,” Giuseppe Pignatone, the chief mafia prosecutor in Reggio Calabria, told reporters today, according to Ansa news agency. The ‘Ndrangheta “takes advantage of every opportunity for illegal income.”
The operation was dubbed “Giotto” after the Italian master painter who ushered in the Renaissance. Some of the fake cash made it to Latin America, Pieroni said, which is an indication that some of the funny money may have been distributed as part of drug transactions. Phony bills worth 20, 50 and 100 euros were discovered, as were false 1- and 2-euro coins. While the quality of the forgeries was “average,” according to Martin Mund, a counterfeit expert at the ECB who aided in the probe, the ring may have produced as much as half of all the counterfeits withdrawn from circulation in 2007 and 2008.
“Anyone familiar with the security features of the banknotes could have realized that they were false without the use of any special equipment,” Mund said in written responses to questions by Bloomberg. The ECB has no plans to change any of the euro’s security features, he said. “The number of counterfeits in circulation is still very limited,” Mund said. Today’s operation follows a similar raid yesterday by finance police near Naples that netted 3.7 million euros worth of fake Algerian dinars, a half-ton of high-quality paper and a sophisticated printing press.


Banco Santander, Spain’s largest bank, has offered to pay 1.38 billion euros, or $1.8 billion, to reimburse private banking clients

Posted On Wednesday, January 28, 2009 0 comments

Banco Santander, Spain’s largest bank, has offered to pay 1.38 billion euros, or $1.8 billion, to reimburse private banking clients who had invested with the disgraced financier Bernard L. Madoff, a settlement that could prompt other financial institutions to follow suit. The offer, which does not apply to institutional investors, was announced Tuesday as investors brought a class-action suit against the Spanish bank in Federal District Court in Miami. They accused the bank of not adequately scrutinizing the Madoff investments, according to Bloomberg. The offer is an indication of Santander’s desire to preserve its image as a conservative institution that prides itself on having avoided the troubles plaguing other big banks because it shunned exotic financial instruments. Santander said in December that it had an exposure of $3 billion to Mr. Madoff’s firm, the largest of any commercial bank. The money was invested through a Geneva-based hedge fund unit, Optimal Investment Services. Mr. Madoff was arrested Dec. 11 and accused of running his investment business as a Ponzi scheme that paid generous returns to investors using money fed into it by new victims. Santander said in a statement Tuesday that the bank had acted “at all times with the due diligence” and “in accordance with all applicable laws and sound banking practices.” The bank’s offer to reimburse clients was “based exclusively on business considerations, namely the group’s interest in maintaining its business relationships with those clients,” the statement said.
Santander said clients would receive a quantity of preferred shares in the bank equal to their initial investment. They would receive a coupon of 2 percent a year on the shares. A spokesman for the bank, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the bank’s rules, said the shares could be traded. The bank would have the option to buy the shares back after 10 years. The bank also announced Tuesday that Optimal would close seven of its funds because clients had been withdrawing money from them.


Spanish police investigated more property corruption scandals in 2008 than in previous years

Posted On Wednesday, January 28, 2009 0 comments

Spanish police investigated more property corruption scandals in 2008 than in previous years, it has emerged.They examined 164 cases, up 40% from 117 cases, figures from the Ministry of the Interior show. The number of arrests also increased from 134 in 2007 to 207 last year


Search and arrest operations were undertaken by the Spanish national police together with the economic crime and money laundering group,

Posted On Wednesday, January 28, 2009 0 comments

SFO spokesman said: "Search and arrest operations were undertaken by the Spanish national police together with the economic crime and money laundering group, the superior chief police of Catalunia with the support of the fraud unit Udes Madrid and the local police of Elche (Alicante) alongside SFO investigators of the SFO and City of London Police last week at four residences and two business premises in Madrid, Barcelona and Alicante.
"Six people were arrested and interviewed in relation to the SFO investigation into Langbar International.
"As part of the ongoing investigation into certain individuals previously associated with Crown Corporation Ltd, now Langbar International under new management, the SFO obtained collaboration from the Cuerpo Nacional de Policia and a mutual legal assistance procedure to undertake searches, arrests and interviews. The operations were co-ordinated by Crime Court 24 of Barcelona."
When the SFO began its investigation in 2005, Langbar had already requested the suspension of its shares. Later that year, the company announced a new board.
No-one from Langbar was available to comment but a statement on the company's website reads: "The present board of Langbar International Limited is determined to discover exactly what has transpired concerning company funds and to pursue their recovery. Our aim is to restore value for shareholders to the maximum that can be achieved."


Forged Euros tracked down to Italy

Posted On Wednesday, January 28, 2009 0 comments

Italian police have dismantled a vast network of euro counterfeiters, arresting 94 people across the country, an officer told AFP on Wednesday. We arrested 94 people in Italy, in 16 of the country's 20 regions,said police spokesman Colonel Carlo Pieroni, adding that most were inthe impoverished southern regions of Campania and Calabria.Police seized 1.23 million euros (1.6 million dollars) ofcounterfeit notes as well as forged documents and revenue stamps used for paying administrative fees, Pieroni said.The counterfeiters produced good quality euro notes indenominations of 20, 50 and 100 as well as one and two euro coins, he added.Pieroni said they had also been operating in other European countries including Germany, Spain, Lithuania and France, and that somefake euros had turned up in Latin America.Two people were arrested in Spain last year as part of the same investigation, he added.What began as a probe into drug trafficking led police to the counterfeit network, which Pieroni described as a veritable holding company made up of 11 criminal units.
Some 700 police officers took part in the operation, which involved
150 searches. They uncovered four laboratories where the fake bills and coins were made.Some of counterfeit money made its way into the illegal drug trade,
Pieroni said.The crackdown came the day after Italian police announced the
dismantling of a network operating near Naples that made fake Algerian dinars worth about 3.5 million euros.


Spanish national police have arrested six men in connection with a massive $600million shares fraud

Posted On Wednesday, January 28, 2009 0 comments

Spanish national police have arrested six men in connection with a massive $600million shares fraud on the London Stock Exchange. Officers from the National Police Economic Crimes and Money Laundering Unit pounced in raids across the country as part of an investigation started by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office four years ago.
Four men were arrested in Barcelona and one each in Madrid and Elche, just inland from the Costa Blanca near Alicante, in south-east Spain. Five of those held are Spanish and the other comes from Argentina. Spanish National Radio reported that one of those arrested was an agent for MOSSAD – the Israeli intelligence service. Spanish police said the Serious Crime Office alleged the massive swindle began in 2003 and was rumbled two years later in 2005. It involved the fraudulent sale of shares in a fictitious company. When it started trading on the stock exchange, the company was said to have assets totalling £370million. Later various financial operations were announced in the firm’s name which led to the value of the shares in the false company going up. Adverts were also placed in specialised publications aimed at creating interest in the shares, said a police statement issued in Madrid.
As well as the arrests Spanish detectives also seized a large quantity of documents and several computers. The six were today being held at a top security prison near Madrid where the case is being handled by the National Criminal Court which deals with all extraditions. If those held agree to be sent to Britain they will be escorted to the UK within a week or two. But if they fight extradition they could spend many months behind bars before a full hearing in front of a panel of three judges at the National Court.


Antonio Caiazzo, 50, and Francesco Simeoli, 40, arrested in Spain

Posted On Wednesday, January 28, 2009 0 comments


Antonio Caiazzo, 50, and Francesco Simeoli, 40, are believed to be heads of a clan in the Naples-area mafia, the Camorra, Naples police said in a statement.Caiazzo has been on the run since March 2007 after being sentenced to 12 years in prison by a Naples court.Simeoli, believed to be his deputy, has been a fugitive since June 2007, when an arrest warrant was issued for him for alleged links to the Camorra.
The arrest warrant also targeted Caiazzo and about 30 others believed to be affiliated with the Vomero clan.Spanish police said in a statement that the clan is known for “a brutal internal Camorra war that culminated in 1997 with the Aranella massacre, in which a woman died in the crossfire between two clans.”
Caiazzo’s clan escaped unscathed, becoming the “uncontested leader,” the statement said.Their capture comes after a series of arrests of suspected Camorra members in recent months in Spain, where the mafia has been accused of working with Colombian drug traffickers.“The Camorra and Colombian cartels work together in Spain” where the Naples mafia manages part of the cocaine trafficking, an Italian police official told the El Pais daily earlier this month — three days after the arrest in Barcelona of another Camorra leader, Salvatore Zazo.


Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Spanish National Police from the organised crime group have seized eight luxury houses, a Lamborghini sports car and a yacht from Ian Donaldson.

Posted On Tuesday, January 27, 2009 1 comments

Spanish National Police from the organised crime group have seized eight luxury houses, a Lamborghini sports car and a yacht from Ian Donaldson.
Amateur racing driver Ian Donaldson's property portfolio on Tenerife includes a £1million clifftop villa. The 30-year-old - once accused of abducting an underworld rival at gunpoint - is being probed along with Ronald O'Dea, 42, and James McDonald, 39. O'Dea and McDonald, of Glasgow, have been arrested as part of Operation Sendero by the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and Spain's police. The pair are accused of running a huge drug-smuggling operation and last week had £12million of money and assets seized in Tenerife and on the Spanish mainland. Donaldson, who has a fortified home in Renton, Dunbartonshire, was targeted in the same probe but is not in custody. As well as having his Tenerife properties frozen, he has been hit in Scotland under similar proceeds of crime laws. SCDEA officers confiscated £47,052 of cash from Donaldson and three other men at Glasgow Airport last September. They also took 9320 Moroccan dirhams (£793) and 660 euros (£622). The Crown Office have raised a civil action at Paisley Sheriff Court to keep the cash. Spanish court documents reveal Madrid judge Eloy Velasco Nunez suspects O'Dea has a secret share in some of the homes seized from Donaldson. Assets seized in Spain and Tenerife include bank accounts, a Lamborghini Gallardo and a yacht. Donaldson's four-bedroom clifftop villa is in the exclusive Lajas de Chapin area. All his Tenerife properties were bought in the last two years.


organised crime unit of the Spanish police is investigating the murder of Richard KeoghIt

Posted On Tuesday, January 27, 2009 1 comments

It has emerged that the murder may have been ordered by a Northside criminal gang.
Organised crime unit of the Spanish police is investigating the murder of Richard Keogh (30), . Security sources in Spain say the killing is believed to be drugs related.Keogh, a father of four children aged between two and nine years, was wounded several times after at least 10 shots were fired in a drive-by shooting in Benalmadena Costa near Marbella.He was walking along a pavement with this wife at about 11.35pm on Saturday when a car pulled up and at least one occupant opened fire. Keogh collapsed on the pavement outside the Torrequebrada Hotel.The dead man is originally from Carnlough Road, Cabra, but in recent years had settled with his family in the Belfry estate, Duleek, Co Meath.On November 2nd, 2007, Keogh was putting his bin out for collection when a gunman fired at least five shots at him as his wife and two-year-old son looked on. He was wounded in the shoulder and arm but managed to run back into the safety of his home.His attacker tried to run into the house but Keogh’s partner slammed the door shut as a number of bullets hit the house.
Shortly after the murder attempt, Keogh put his five bedroom detached property up for sale and moved with his partner and children to southern Spain. Keogh has been a target of the Garda National Drug Unit for a number of years as part of Operation Rugby and Operation Banish. He was associated with a man from Cabra who was a member of an international gang caught with cocaine valued at €400 million off the coast of Spain a number of years ago.Keogh’s assets are currently being investigated by the Criminal Assets Bureau. Garda sources said they regarded Keogh a “significant player” in the drugs trade here.The deceased was one of a growing number of gangland figures involved in the motor trade in Dublin. He was a partner in a garage in the north inner city. Garda sources said that while he had addresses in Balbriggan and Duleek before moving to Spain, he remained closely associated with drug dealers from Cabra and from Dublin’s north inner city. He and was also associated with the Finglas-based gang once led by Martin “Marlo” Hyland.Gardaí suspect that when Keogh moved to Spain he began sourcing cocaine and other drugs from international gangs there for export to his contacts in Ireland. They believe his murder is most likely linked to a drugs dispute with an international cartel rather than with any Irish criminals based in Benalmadena Costa. Southern Spain is popular with Irish gangs because it is the European distribution hub for cocaine smuggled from Colombia via west Africa.Keogh’s murder is the latest in a series of killings in which Irish drug dealers have been shot after relocating to continental Europe.Peter Mitchell (39), of Summerhill in Dublin, was wounded in a shooting in Marbella last August. He was a one-time associate of John Gilligan. Drug dealer Paddy Doyle, of Portland Place, in Dublin, was shot dead near Marbella last February.The former leaders of the notorious Dublin Westies gang, Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg, were shot dead in Alicante, southern Spain, in early 2004.John McKeon, from Finglas in Dublin, has been missing presumed dead in Spain for over three years. Cork drug dealer Michael “Danser” Ahern was found dead in the freezer of an apartment in Portugal in 2005.


Richard Keogh was shot seven times after leaving a meeting with a South American drug dealer

Posted On Tuesday, January 27, 2009 0 comments


Richard Keogh was shot seven times after leaving a meeting in a bar with a South American drug dealer.Keogh’s killer stood over him discharging shots into his body and head as he lay on the pavement outside a hotel and casino complex on the Costa del Sol.The drug-dealing contact he had just met, who is believed to be from Venezuela, was interviewed by the police about Keogh’s last movements. He was then detained on foot of an outstanding warrant for drugs charges.Police are hopeful an examination of the Honda Civic getaway car will yield fingerprint evidence that would have been destroyed if efforts by the gunman to set the car on fire had been successful.It is understood that a pair of gloves and a spent magazine from a handgun were also found in the car.The vehicle was seized by police less than a half a mile from the spot where Keogh was murdered late on Saturday night outside the Torrequebrada hotel and casino at Benalmadena Costa.The Honda Civic pulled up alongside Keogh – a father of four and a known gangland figure – and his wife as they were walking along a pavement just after 11pm. Keogh tried to escape after being shot at twice. However, he fell injured and the killer fired a number of rounds into his body from close range.A postmortem examination identified two shots to his back, two to his head and one each to his thigh, leg and arm. At least 12 bullet casings were found at the scene.Gardaí believe Keogh had been a significant player in the drugs trade in Ireland for at least six years. Detectives suspect that over the past year he was sourcing large quantities of cocaine from international gangs in Spain for export to Ireland.It is unclear if Keogh was shot as part of a dispute with international dealers based on the Costa del Sol, or if he was targeted by an Irish drugs gang with whom he was in dispute before he left Ireland with his wife and children just over a year ago.Gardaí are assisting the Spanish investigating team to build a profile of Keogh’s movements in recent times and his associates both here and in Spain.The dead man was originally from Carnlough Road, Cabra, but had settled in the Belfry estate in Duleek, Co Meath. He was shot and wounded outside his house in November 2007 and decided to move from Ireland to Spain.
Gardaí believe the attempted murder in 2007 was carried out by a drugs gang based in Louth and Meath, supported by a Tallaght gang. The suspected gunman is from Belfast and is a dissident republican.Keogh had an elaborate system of CCTV cameras concealed in the eaves of his house, with viewing screens hidden in the attic. The gun attack was clearly captured by the cameras.However, when the suspected gunman was put in an identification parade by gardaí, Keogh refused to pick him out. Gardaí believe he had secret talks with his attackers and thought the drug dispute had been resolved. Keogh had a number of properties here and a part share in a car garage in Dublin’s north inner city. Those assets are being investigated by the Criminal Assets Bureau.


Richard Keogh was gunned down by a hitman who lured him on to the street with a phone call.

Posted On Tuesday, January 27, 2009 0 comments


Richard Keogh was gunned down by a hitman who lured him on to the street with a phone call.As the 30-year-old man left his bar rendezvous with a South American pal, a car stopped and a hitman emerged. He fired at Keogh, hitting him once in front of his girlfriend, before chasing after his target. He shot the Dubliner a further six times -- including twice in the head. The gunman was driven off in the stolen getaway car, which was recovered nearby with its keys in the ignition. A pair of gloves and a spent handgun magazine were also discovered in the car. All the materials are being examined. The car was found a kilometre away from the scene of the murder, at the Torrequebrada hotel and casino at Benalmadena, southern Spain. The Venezuelan man who had been drinking with Keogh in the minutes before his death was interviewed by police yesterday, but is not a suspect. He was held in custody after police discovered an arrest warrant existed for him in Venezuela. The garda liaison officer, based in Madrid, is now working with Spanish National Police to uncover any links between the murder and a previous attempt on Keogh's life in Ireland 14 months ago. Keogh survived after being struck in the arm, as he carried one of his children out the front door of his home on the Belfry estate in Duleek, Co Louth, in November 2007. He relocated to Spain with his partner and four children shortly afterwards. "Keogh knew he was under threat and that the gang who targeted him in Duleek were still out to get him. He had no major falling out with any Costa gangs we known about, so the Dublin connection is a strong line of investigation," said a source. Keogh came to garda attention as a major criminal around five years ago, when then gang boss Marlo Hyland used him as a bagman during drug dealing activities in north Dublin.


Alan Dickson lived in Malaga where he took on a job and cared for his ailing mother before coming to the attention of Spanish police.

Posted On Tuesday, January 27, 2009 0 comments

Alan Dickson fled following his Christmas holiday release from Castle Huntly open prison at Longforgan in 2006.He lived in Malaga where he took on a job and cared for his ailing mother before coming to the attention of Spanish police.Dickson had been jailed for 10 years in March 2002 after being “shopped” by one of his drug couriers.
The 38-year-old, formerly of Falkland, sent the couriers back to Scotland laden with cannabis resin-laden suitcases from his flat in Torremolinos, Spain.He was in business for over nine months before he and four accomplices were trapped in an undercover operation led by Fife Police and the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency.
It was estimated that the drugs involved in the enterprise could have had a street value of over £1 million.Three of his assistants were jailed for a total of 13 years at the High Court in Edinburgh, while a fourth walked free in return for giving evidence.He appeared from custody at Perth Sheriff Court yesterday, where depute fiscal Alan Kempton told the court that Dickson had been faced with at least 22 months’ further imprisonment when he took the decision to flee.He explained that Dickson had been serving the latter part of his sentence at Castle Huntly, having been transferred from HMP Perth on June 20, 2006.“On December 23, 2006, the accused was released from Castle Huntly on temporary licence,” Mr Kempton said.“He was to return no later that 4pm on December 28, but by 7pm on the 28th he has still not returned and a warrant was issued for his arrest.“The accused was subsequently arrested in Spain, having been living in Malaga, on October 13, 2008.”Solicitor Michelle Renton told the court that her client had surrendered himself to the police in Spain after he became aware that they were looking for him.She said, “He was given his release from Castle Huntly for the Christmas holidays.“He decided to abscond because his mother—who along with his father lived in Malaga in Spain—had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.“He absconded to care for her and he did so until she died on May 8, 2008.“While in Spain, together with attending to his mother’s needs, he rented a property and was working.“He was a law-abiding citizen in Spain, for what that is worth.”Miss Renton said her client’s extradition warrant had later come to the attention of the Spanish authorities.She said, “After handing himself in, he co-operated fully with the extradition procedure.”The accused spent two months in a Spanish cell before being extradited back to Scotland and Perth Prison.Dickson, described as a prisoner at Perth, admitted absconding from HMP Castle Huntly, Longforgan, on December 28, 2006 having been sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment at Edinburgh High Court on March 5, 2002 in relation to drugs offences.
Sheriff William Gilchrist said, “To abscond from open prison is a serious offence, whatever the motivation.”The sheriff sentenced Dickson to an additional 12 months’ imprisonment.He will also have to serve out the remaining 22 months of his original sentence.


Sunday, January 25, 2009

Arrests in the Body in the suitcase

Posted On Sunday, January 25, 2009 0 comments

25 year old man and a 40 year old woman have been arrested in connection with the death of a man whose body was found last Tuesday inside a suitcase which had been abandoned on waste ground in Benimaclet in Valencia.It seems the two arrested on Friday were romantically involved, and were arrested after the daughter of the woman alerted police to the fact that her boyfriend was missing. His description matched that of the man found in the suitcase. Police think that the arrested man could earlier have also have had a romantic involvement with the daughter. The mother had told her daughter, who is pregnant by the victim, that he had left the area on a business trip.The body in the half-open suitcase, which was found by chance, had six stab wounds and showed signs of torture. The victim and the two arrested are all from Honduras.


Juan Antonio Roca, the ex Municipal Real Estate assessor, has been sentenced

Posted On Sunday, January 25, 2009 0 comments

Juan Antonio Roca, the ex Municipal Real Estate assessor, has been sentenced in the fourth section of the Penal Hall of the National Court in Spain to six years ten months in prison. Roca was sentenced to five years in prison for the misuse of public funds, and an additional 22 months for document falsification.
He and two others charged in the Saqueo case also have to pay back 23 million to Marbella Town Hall.José Luis Sierra, the ex judicial advisor to the late Mayor, Jesús Gil, has to serve nine years in prison, seven for the misuse of public funds and two for document falsification.The accountant, Manuel Jorge Castel, has been given six years for the misuse of public funds and two for document falsification.
Another three accused were found not guilty. These are Eduardo Gonzálvez and Francisco Javier Herrera, who were employed by the two municipal companies, Planeamientos 2000, and Contratas 2000, and Purificación Notario, wife of the late manager of Contratas 2000.The case relates to the diversion of public funds into private companies from the Marbella Town Hall between 1991 and 1995. The sentencing has been announced by the magistrate, Juan Francisco Martel, who heard the case between October 10 and November 27 last year. He concluded that the three found guilty created a preconceived plan to divert the public money.


Saturday, January 24, 2009

Banco Santander SA,Spanish authorities want to know what officials at Banco Santander knew about Madoff’s alleged fraud

Posted On Saturday, January 24, 2009 0 comments

Banco Santander SA, one of the largest banks in Spain, has been caught up in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme scandal. And now, Spanish authorities want to know what officials at Banco Santander knew about Madoff’s alleged fraud, and when they knew it.

Numerous individuals, institutions and hedge funds lost money because of Madoff’s alleged scheme. But according to the Associated Press, losses for Banco Santander’s clients were among th highest of any bank linked to Madoff’s invesment advisory business. Those clients were invested in the Optimal Strategic US Equity Fund, which is managed by a unit of Banco Santander. That fund has lost more than $3.1 billion as a result of investing with Madoff, the Associated Press said.
Shortly after the U.S. FBI arrested Madoff for securities fraud last December, Spain’s anticorruption prosecutor began investigating the relationship between Banco Santander and the accused swindler. The prosecutor wants to know whether managers of the Optimal Strategic US Equity Fund knew of problems at Madoff’s operations when they marketed the vehicle to investors. A key question is why Santander Chairman Emilio Botín sent one of his chief lieutenants to see Madoff in New York just weeks before the alleged Ponzi scheme collapsed.
They are also looking at the timing of the resignation of Manuel Echeverría, who The Wall Street Journal said presided over the Optimal fund while it built its relationship with Madoff. He left the bank on June 30, 2008 after 19 years there. Five colleagues also quit at the same time.Others have questioned the methods Banco Santander used to recruit investors for the Optimal fund, and some lawyers representing Santander clients claim the bank made a practice of steering unqualified investors to Optimal.According to a report on Bloomberg.com, Santander branch managers channeled customers with money from property sales or inheritances to private banking salespeople, who convinced them to sink their money into the Optimal Strategic US Equity Fund. These investors reportedly included a retired school teacher who put $388,000 - half her savings - in the fund. In another case, a street vendor was convinced to invest more than $400,000 in lottery winnings in the fund. That client had to return to street vending after Santander lost his winnings.So far, Banco Santander has maintained that because the Optimal funds losses were the result of fraud, it will not be compensating its clients.


Thursday, January 22, 2009

Female Striptease performance at Spanish jail angers guards

Posted On Thursday, January 22, 2009 0 comments

A prison guards' union says a female stripper performed at a Spanish jail and authorities did nothing to stop it.The union says the woman took her clothes off before male inmates Jan. 2 and committed several lewd acts at the prison in Picassent in the eastern Valencia region.An official with the Spanish Penitentiary System called it an inappropriate "musical performance" and said an investigation was trying to find out who authorized it.The union called ACAIP reported the event in a complaint filed Jan. 8 with the prison system and reported Thursday in Spanish media.The complaint says a female deputy warden witnessed the striptease in a recreation area and did not stop it. It says several female guards left the room in disgust.


Spain faced a "very high risk" of suffering another Islamist attack

Posted On Thursday, January 22, 2009 0 comments

Six people of Pakistani origin were arrested on suspicion of " fraud" Tuesday in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.Earlier in the day, a source close to the inquiry had said police detained 10 suspected Islamic extremists in raids in Barcelona, Madrid and the Canary Islands in an operation ordered by top antiterrorist judge Baltazar Garzon.Rubalcaba gave no further details as to possible charges, but a judicial source told AFP the six arrested in Barcelona are suspected of financing terrorist activities by carrying out thefts and sending money raised from criminal activities to Pakistan.The six had traveled to Barcelona from different parts of Spain, the source added.Spanish police have carried out several operations against suspected Islamic extremists since the bomb attacks on three packed commuter trains in Madrid on March 11, 2004 which killed 191 people in Europe's worst Islamic-linked terror attack.Islamic extremists claimed responsibility for the attack, which they said they had carried out in the name of al-Qaida in response to the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq at the time.
Police detained 15 suspected Islamic militants, mostly from Pakistan, in January 2008 in Barcelona who the authorities feared were plotting an attack in the city, which has a large population of Pakistani immigrants.Garzon has warned that Spain faced a "very high risk" of suffering another Islamist attack


Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Banco Santander SA sold Bernard Madoff investments Branch managers channeled customers with money from property sales or inheritances

Posted On Wednesday, January 21, 2009 0 comments

Banco Santander SA sold Bernard Madoff investments Branch managers channeled customers with money from property sales or inheritances to private banking salespeople, lawyers for the investors said. A retired school teacher put 300,000 euros ($388,000), half her savings, in a structured product linked to Madoff, said Jordi Ruiz de Villa, an attorney at the Barcelona law firm Jausas. The vendor invested 325,000 euros of lottery winnings in a similar product and may have to return to street sales, according to lawyers at Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo in Madrid.
“The fact that someone has a sum of money in the bank doesn’t make him a suitable customer for this type of product,” said Ruiz de Villa, who’s representing about 30 account-holders with potential claims of 10 million euros, including the teacher. “Some retail clients have suffered true
personal catastrophes because of this.” He wouldn’t provide the teacher’s name. Santander, Spain’s biggest lender, may lose customers at the domestic branch network that accounts for a third of profit if it is found to have misled people who trusted their neighborhood bankers, said Peter Hahn, a fellow at Cass Business School in London. The bank, led by Chairman Emilio
Botin, has said clients have 2.33 billion euros invested with Madoff, including 320 million euros from private banking customers in Spain. “The model in Spain where customers just left it to Big
Daddy Botin to take care of things has been broken,” said Fernando Zunzunegui, a Madrid-based lawyer. He said he is taking on Madoff-related claims valued at 8.2 million euros from 20 clients who are “clearly retail.” He declined to provide detailed information about his firm’s clients.
Ruiz de Villa and Zunzunegui said they are signing up clients and reviewing the cases in preparation for filing possible lawsuits against Santander. Javier Cremades, chairman of Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo, said he’ll push for a settlement first. New York-based Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC collapsed last month after Madoff told his sons it was a $50
billion Ponzi scheme, according to a complaint filed by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Worldwide, the victims include banks, charities and investors such as Madrid-based billionaire Alicia Koplowitz and film director Steven Spielberg. Santander, based in the Spanish city of the same name, on Dec. 14 said international private banking clients and institutional investors had 2.01 billion euros of potential losses in Madoff-related funds. The rest of the money is in
investments sold to “qualifying investors” in SpainBranch customers were sold products linked to Madoff through Santander’s Geneva-based Optimal Investment Services hedge-fund arm, said the three lawyers representing the bank’s customers. Investors were asked to sign statements that they understood what they were purchasing and met the criteria for
investing. The bank has said it won’t compensate clients who invested with Madoff because the losses involve fraud. A spokeswoman for Santander said the bank had no further comment on the matter. Selling structured products to wealthy clients has been a popular strategy in Spain and wasn’t in itself wrong, because Santander believed it would yield safe and stable returns, said Fernando Luque, an analyst at Morningstar Inc. in Madrid. “Many of these institutions like Santander are going to be protected by the documentation, but the question is how great is the business damage from all this,” Hahn of Cass Business School said.


alleged Moroccan drug trafficker, who has been arrested in Melilla, has confessed to having carried out several assassinations,

Posted On Wednesday, January 21, 2009 0 comments

alleged Moroccan drug trafficker, who has been arrested in Melilla, has confessed to having carried out several assassinations, and of hiding the bodies in a well in Murcia. He claimed that another Moroccan and a Spaniard of gypsy origin took part in the killings.
Firemen, the Guardia Civil and some soldiers spent Wednesday searching for the bodies and reports now indicate that at least two have now been found. One of the bodies is thought to have been killed ten years ago, the other five.Work continues at the site of a 30m deep well in an area of Cartagena known as Pozo Estrecho.
The Government delegate for Murcia, Rafael González Tovar, has said that the police and judicial action in the case is now under reporting restrictions.


EEC report on Land Grab law and real estate abuse in Valencia

Posted On Wednesday, January 21, 2009 0 comments

European Parliament is threatening to freeze funding to Spain unless real estate abuses are brought to an end.Attack on the Spanish judicial system contained in the report from Danish M.P. Margarete Auken, was not welcomed by the Spanish.
Spanish Euro MP’s from both the Socialists PSOE, and the Partido Popular, say they will add amendments to the draft of the report on the land grab and other alleged real estate abuse carried out in Spain, which was presented yesterday by the Danish parliamentarian, Margarete Auken, to the Petitions Commission of the European Parliament. They have until the 27th of this month to present their amendments. The proposed modifications will be voted on February 11.

The Green Danish MP suggests a moratorium on all town planning in the Valencia region unless that water supplies for the new properties are guaranteed, and wants a reform of the town planning legislation in the region. She says that European funding could be withdrawn from Spain if the abuse does not end, and criticises the Spanish Constitutional Court for not protecting the rights of purchasers by not firmly applying article 33 of the Spanish Constitution which refers to private property.That attack on the Spanish Constitution brought the response from the PP Euro deputy, José Manuel García Margallo, who said the text was barbaric.
Socialist Euro deputy, Maruja Sornosa, said the text could be improved and announced amendments against the part of the text which attacked the Spanish Judicial System. She also wanted to see the moratorium removed, with a grand new town planning agreement put in its place and also wanted the threat to remove European funding removed from the text.The draft was approved however by the Green Euro MP, David Hammerstein.The presentation of the draft in Brussels has caused great effect in the Valencia region where most of the town planning abuses are based, although both Andalucía and Murcia are included. President of the Generalitat regional government in Valencia, Francisco Camps, called on the Socialists to apologise for their behaviour and allegations made, he said, to damage town planning in the Valencia region, blaming them for job losses in the construction sector. Government delegate, Ricardo Peralta, responded to that by saying the problems in Valencia came from the economic crisis and not from the reports from Brussels.The Auken report is the third EU report about building in Spain and comes after reports in 2005 and 2007, all highly critical of building law in the country. The Valencia region is at the centre of them all.


Judges in Madrid have voted by a wide majority in support of strike action

Posted On Wednesday, January 21, 2009 0 comments

Judges in Madrid have voted by a wide majority in support of strike action, voting 103 votes to 19 to take the strike action which is to start on February 18. The decision in Madrid follows similar decisions to take action in Murcia, Extremadura, Zamora, Málaga and Sevilla on the same day.The judges say they are short-staffed and need more resources so as to carry out their jobs. Despite some concessions from the Ministry, the protests for now remain in place with judges in Barcelona and Asturias also reported to be considering action.
The main judges associations are to meet with the Minister for Justice, Mariano Fernández Bermejo, on Monday.If the protest goes ahead on February 18, it will be the first time that judges have taken strike action in Spain.


Spanish Civil Guards arrested six Pakistani nationals Tuesday

Posted On Wednesday, January 21, 2009 0 comments

Spanish Civil Guards arrested six Pakistani nationals Tuesday, accused of sales tax fraud, a Civil Guard spokesman in Madrid told CNN.The spokesman declined to confirm Spanish media reports that the suspects may have been involved in financing Islamic extremist activities.But the arrests occurred across Spain in an operation directed by Spain's anti-terrorism National Court.The suspects were detained in Barcelona, the southeast region of Valencia, the northern city of Logrono and in Las Palmas on Spain's Gran Canaria Island in the Atlantic, off the coast of Morocco, said the Civil Guard spokesman, who by custom is not identified.Since the Madrid train bombings in 2004 that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800 --- which a court found was due to Islamic terrorists --- Spanish police have arrested numerous suspects for financing Islamic terrorism


Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Sub-Saharan man has been killed in a street fight

Posted On Tuesday, January 20, 2009 0 comments

Sub-Saharan man has been killed in a street fight in El Ejido, Almería. The man from Mali is said to have died at 0930 on Tuesday morning after being hit with a stick by a countryman, who has now been arrested.National Police are investigating the reasons for the disturbance.


Juan Antonio Roca,fourth section of the Penal Hall of the National Court is to make public the sentence

Posted On Tuesday, January 20, 2009 0 comments



The fourth section of the Penal Hall of the National Court is to make public the sentence against the ex Real Estate Assessor of the Marbella Town Hall, Juan Antonio Roca, and the five others accused in the Saqueo money laundering corruption case, on Friday.The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor has asked for a ten year prison sentence for Roca, for allegedly diverting public funds away from the Marbella Town Hall to private companies over the years 1991 to 1995.


Monday, January 19, 2009

Case to answer against the mayor of Alhaurin el Grande and his wife .

Posted On Monday, January 19, 2009 0 comments

It seems that more than 150,000 euros entered their bank account from unknown sources and plots of land were acquired without any payment being made . The prosecutor is talking about bribery , money laundering and the planning of crimes .It appears that 23 other people are involved in what has become known as the ” Troya ” corruption case .It all started in 2007 when an investigation discovered that money was exchanging hands with the town hall in return for building licenses .It was also discovered tht an extra charge was being made for every square metre being being built over and above the building license .The mayor and the councillor involved in planning were both arrested and released on 100,000 euro bail .The mayor is still in situ and says that he is not going to move out of office until he is accused and found guilty of the crimes as it is he will go on about his business as usual . He sees the public prosecutor in Malaga as “trying to make a name for himself”


Spain was last week one of three eurozone countries warned over its public finances

Posted On Monday, January 19, 2009 0 comments

"I wish we could leave the eurozone. That way we could devalue."
Spain was last week one of three eurozone countries warned over its public finances in the space of three days, underlining the parlous state of the single currency economies. Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's said Spain could face a downgrade after entering recession in the fourth quarter, citing concerns about its high private sector debt as well as its deteriorating public finances. Greece and Ireland were also put on notice by S&P - with a downgrade driving up their borrowing costs. S&P said Spain had to cut public spending to match falling government revenues.
million newly built properties now remain unsold. Prices have plummeted and construction has ground to a halt
."This is different to anything we have experienced before," finance minister Pedro Solbes admitted in El País newspaper, and warned of a nightmare 2009.

The economy will shrink by 1.6%. The budget deficit will come close to 6%. "We have used up the margin we had in public spending," he said. Solbes's predictions reveal the depth of suffering to come. By the end of this year, 16% will be unemployed.
By that measure Spain has far-and-away the most troubled economy in Europe. It shed a million jobs last year, a feat not managed by any other European country since the 1930s, according to El Mundo newspaper. Another million jobs are expected to go this year. Spain already has as many unemployed workers as Germany, a country with almost double its population. Spain's savings banks predict unemployment of 18%. "That is surely impossible. It is the stuff of social revolution," commented one senior trade unionist."The real problems will come in the second half of this year," said Victor Renes of the charity Caritas - when the first wave of jobless will be reduced to minimal aid from one of western Europe's less generous welfare systems. Caritas has already seen demand for help leap 75% in 2008.Immigration has increased eightfold in a decade. It is so new that Spaniards have never competed for jobs with foreigners in a recession before. "I am worried that we will see racism and xenophobia," said Renes.With almost a third of the workforce on short-term contracts, sending workers to the dole queue has been relatively easy. Getting them back into work may not be so simple. An emergency €11bn (£10bn) public works programme will keep some in work this year. Javier Morillas of San Pablo-CEU university warns: "These are merely temporary measures. They have no long-term impact." Spain trails Europe's other leading economies in areas such as productivity, education and research and those who left school early for well-paid jobs on building sites are poorly prepared.
Spain may start to pull itself out of recession by the end of the year but meaningful growth will be harder to achieve, said José Carlos Diez of Intermoney.
Tight regulation means Spain's banking sector escaped the credit crunch without government rescues. Some, like Banco Santander, have gone shopping - snatching up Sovereign in the US and adding Alliance & Leicester and parts of Bradford and Bingley to the business.The building bust, however, will still hurt them. The banks' problem is not mortgages, but money owed by builders and developers. This accounts for 40% of loans and a majority of bad ones. Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is blaming Spain's problems on external factors such as the credit crunch. "This is a national emergency," said shadow finance minister Cristóbal Montoro. "Trying to solve our problems with public spending is a huge error."
Developer has shut his sales shop, halted building and handed 2,000 homes over to the banks. In his hardware store Barrios proposed a solution. "I wish we could leave the eurozone," he said. "That way we could devalue."


Discount grocer Kwik Save, has been resurrected on the Costa del Sol.

Posted On Monday, January 19, 2009 0 comments

Discount grocer Kwik Save, has been resurrected on the Costa del Sol.
Peter O'Toole, a former director at Irish grocer Musgrave, bought the rights to the name from the administrator and opened a 5,000 sq ft store in Torremuelle late last year.O'Toole said initial reactions to the opening have been positive among the large British ex-pat community. "Most people have been really enthusiastic because there are no real discounters here," he said.He added that sterling's weakness against the euro was making the grocer an attractive proposition. He wants to open at least 10 stores within the next 18 months with franchise partners and is in discussions with Musgrave.Kwik Save stocks about 3,500 products from the UK.


Woman was shot in the leg by a man who tried to steal her car on Avenida Juan Carlos I in Estepona.

Posted On Monday, January 19, 2009 0 comments

Woman was shot in the leg by a man who tried to steal her car on Avenida Juan Carlos I in Estepona. On Tuesday a Mercamálaga employee was jumped and mugged of more than one thousand euros takings which he was on his way to bankTwo thieves armed with a gun and a knife jumped a man as he was about to leave for work in Vélez-Málaga on Friday morning, and stole a case he was carrying which contained 60,000 euros worth of jewellery. The victim, a jewellery sales representative, was overpowered by his assailants but managed to scream for help. At that moment, the victim's cousin, who happened to be passing by, came to his aid but was stabbed in the hand by one of the thieves. He was later taken to the Vélez-Málaga hospital with a serious injury.Witnesses say that the two thieves fled the scene in a getaway car, in which two other men were waiting, and drove off towards Malaga city. The victim told the police that the suspects had a foreign accent.

.


Sunday, January 18, 2009

Mayor of La Linea, Juan Carlos Juárez, has been suspended from his post for six months by the Penal Court 2 in Algeciras

Posted On Sunday, January 18, 2009 0 comments

Mayor of La Linea, Juan Carlos Juárez, has been suspended from his post for six months by the Penal Court 2 in Algeciras on a charge of obstructing justice.
The ex GIL party member also has to pay 720 € in the so-called Caso Palex.It dates back to 2001 when the La Linea Town Hall was ordered by the Andalucian High Court to pay 1.84 million € to the Palez company which had the job between 1994 and 1998 of supplying hospital dialysis services, but the Town Hall, led by the Mayor, failed to pay all the debt, citing the economic crisis as the reason. Some 900,000 € including interest is reported to be still outstanding.


Nigerians continue to send thousands of false lottery letters from Andalucía and the Mediterranean Coast.

Posted On Sunday, January 18, 2009 0 comments

Nigerians continue to send thousands of false lottery letters from Andalucía and the Mediterranean Coast.The Nilo case led to the arrest of 310 people and the searching of 180 different premises, when the Málaga group was sending between 15,000 and 20,000 letters a day. But even now the police say that they are arresting a new group every two or three weeks.The United States Department of Justice estimates that there have been 2.8 million victims in the States who have paid out some 753 million €. Many of the victims pensioners or this disabled, according to the United States Government.In total some 100 million € is defrauded from more than 50 countries every year.This week the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor has called for 168 of those arrested in the Nilo case to be processed, but such a court case would be a complicated one. More than 100 of those arrested have already been expelled from Spain, while the rest are on bail, and for each victim known to the police there are an estimated 100 who are not, all of them living abroad.


Spanish ADSL is the slowest and most expensive in Europe

Posted On Sunday, January 18, 2009 0 comments

The Spanish Association of Internet Users has complained about the slowing growth rate of ADSL and cable connections in the country, and called for price reductions. They claim the Spanish ADSL is the slowest and most expensive in Europe.Last November there were 86,404 new ADSL connections, down 40% year on year.The Association says that it wants to see universal access to the web, sustained by public money. In the meantime they are calling for a liberalisation of prices, with the application of a reference maximum price


Monday, January 12, 2009

Dubai the new Costa del Crime

Posted On Monday, January 12, 2009 0 comments

Crime bosses are fleeing to the United Arab Emirates state because there is no extradition treaty with the UK. Dubai has become a paradise for British fugitives on the run.They are also using the property market there as an easy way to launder their millions. Traditionally criminals fled to Spain's Costa del Sol, but because of the success in extraditing gangsters such as road rage killer Kenny Noye it is no longer considered safe.Among those believed to be in Dubai are £53million Securitas robbery suspect Sean Lupton, 48. Armed robber Noel Cunningham, 47, who escaped from a prison van while on the way to court in 2003, is also believed to be in Dubai.
A source at the Serious and Organised Crime Agency said: "Dubai has pretty much everything you could want as a criminal on the run. Apart from the obvious sun and luxury there is no comprehensive extradition treaty."That makes it very difficult for us to get them to send any wanted criminals back to the UK for trial. Dubai has become the bolthole of choice for the criminal underworld."


Spanish Bank guarantees that are in order are not being honoured as the Spanish property market goes into freefall.

Posted On Monday, January 12, 2009 0 comments

Bank guarantees, or Aval Bancario, from developers have been compulsory by law on off-plan purchases in Spain for the past 40 years. They mean that if a developer fails to build on time, or goes into administration and does not build at all, buyers should get most or all of their money returned. Until recently they worked well. As the holiday home market boomed, few developers went bust and buyers would accept minor delays. If a buyer did claim a refund, developers and banks gladly obliged knowing that rising values and strong demand would see any subsequent unsold home snapped up.
But now Spain's property market is in free-fall. At least 15 developers building holiday homes on the Costas filed for bankruptcy last year. Thousands of homes remain part-built and buyers are calling in bank guarantees. But many are discovering they were given faulty documents by developers, or have guarantees with conditions that make them worthless. One major developer in administration, Martinsa-Fadesa, has been accused by the newspaper El Pais of not issuing bank guarantees at all.

"Until recently some developers would regard it as an insult to be asked for them by foreign buyers and just wouldn't issue them. In other cases guarantees exist but may be out of date or worded in a way that make banks feel they need not honour them," says Peter Ebders of the International Law Partnership, a British legal firm.
More ominously, Ebders says even some guarantees that are in order are not being honoured because banks do not want to pay out large sums in the current dire financial situation. Ruth Genda, from Wymondham in Leicestershire, fell foul of a worthless bank guarantee on an apartment in Marbella on the Costa del Sol. The retired educationalist put down a £75,000 deposit in 2003. But construction was delayed and then the flat was declared an "illegal build" for lacking formal planing permission. Genda took Banco Popular Hipotecaria (BPH) to court, which declared her guarantee valid. But BPH appealed and the original result was overturned. A further legal review found in the bank's favour.Genda says the lack of appropriate building consent makes the flat impossible to occupy: "We're not prepared or able to buy an illegal property. It can't be mortgaged and it can't be sold because of its status. Our coffers are drained by legal fees and other costs, and we're likely to lose our deposit." Genda has launched an online petition - gopetition.com/petitions/spanishbankguarantees.html - but is realistic about the slim chances of success. "The guarantees have been given under false pretences, and no one in authority we've approached - MPs, MEPs, ministers, ombudsmen and so on - have been able to help." More than 100 people claiming to have valid guarantees have signed Genda's petition. "The problem is widespread. Lots of Britons are caught up. It's scandalous," says Barcelona-based Mark Stucklin, editor of the website Spanish Property Insight. The Bank of Spain says it has told banks to honour valid guarantees but has no power to enforce the instruction. Lawyer Mark Wilkins of Marbella-based The Rights Group says any prospective buyer, or one in mid-purchase, should instruct a lawyer to check the eligibility of his bank guarantee - even if the developer appears not to be in financial difficulties.


Uruguayan Police capture international drug gang that moved cocaine to Spain

Posted On Monday, January 12, 2009 0 comments

Uruguayan police disrupted an international cocaine moved to Spain, with the arrest of 14 people, including two Spanish and one Venezuelan, and the seizure of 124 kilos of that drug and 250,000 euros ( 322,500 U.S. dollars), police sources confirmed today.


The Coast of the Death 4 tons of Cocaine siezed in Galicia

Posted On Monday, January 12, 2009 0 comments

National Police have siezed 122 cocaine bundles, about 4,000 kilos, that had been disembarked on the beach at Morte, in the municipality Coruna . A person, has been arrested on the beach. The Coast of the Death four tons of cocaine disembarked on a the beach.Spanish authorities seized some four tonnes of cocaine in northwestern Spain on Monday and detained one person as part of their operation, police and customs agents said, cited by AFP.
The authorities moved in as a group was unloading the drugs from a speedboat on a beach between the towns of Aguino and Ribeira in Galicia, a rugged fishing region of isolated coves that is a key entry point for cocaine, they said.
When the group saw the authorities arrive they set fire to the boat and abandoned the cocaine but police managed to arrest one of their members who they said belongs to one of the most active trafficking groups in the region.
Spain, with its historical and linguistic ties to South America, is Europe's main entry point for cocaine from the continent, especially from Colombia, the world's top producer of the drug.
Spanish customs agents seized 21.8 tonnes of cocaine in 2008, according to provisional figures, down from 25 tonnes in the previous year.


New Zealander died in hospital alleged that a Briton was the instigator of the attack.

Posted On Monday, January 12, 2009 0 comments

New Zealander died in hospital in Cádiz on Christmas Eve after being involved in a brawl in La Línea on December 19. It is alleged that the victim and a Briton were involved in a row which first broke out in a pub in Gibraltar and then for reasons unknown the pair decided to go to La Línea where the deceased man lived. Eyewitnesses say that the second encounter took place in La Atunara after a further row between the two. The injured man received a heavy blow to the head. Although there is a hospital in La Línea he was transferred to the Cádiz hospital which has better facilities for dealing with very serious brain injuries. No details about the nature of the fight have been released. However on the Monday after the assault, four days after the incident, the family of the injured man made an official report at the National Police HQ in La Línea. They alleged that the other Briton was the instigator of the attack.


British families started legal proceedings against builders Peinsa after the company reported that La Tercia Real golf resort would not be built

Posted On Monday, January 12, 2009 0 comments

British families have started legal proceedings against builders Peinsa after the company reported that La Tercia Real (LTR) golf resort would not be built. The Hearns and Hunter paid 80,000 each to the builder two years ago for off-plan properties at the complex near Sucina, Murcia. They sold their homes in the UK to finance the deposit of their dream homes and moved into rented accommodation to wait for them to be built. Now they have no property in the UK or in Spain and cannot get their money refunded by the bank despite having a bank warrant. They have been paying £800 and £750 per month in rent respectively, and a further £100 for storage of furniture and belongings.Their solicitor has sent out notary orders to the bank and to Peinsa. Both families are now looking for a court date to recover their life savings. "Nightmare does not even begin to say what this has done to two hard working families with the Spanish dream. "The properties were not holiday homes - they were the only homes we had." She added that as compensation they were offered key ready properties which ‘were not a patch on what they signed up for'. And last August they were offered a 10,000-euro discount at the sales office to stay with Peinsa. Mrs Hearn said: "We were ready to pull out but it was our dream home and we gave them the benefit of the doubt." Mrs Hearn reported that Jayne Hunter was admitted to hospital in the UK shortly before Christmas.


Estepona Town Hall's outstanding debt with Telefónica has forced the company to cut off the council's telephones.

Posted On Monday, January 12, 2009 0 comments

Estepona Town Hall's outstanding debt with Telefónica has forced the company to cut off the council's telephones. The telephone company decided to bar outgoing calls from the Town Hall as a result of the local authority's outstanding debt of more than 200,000 euros. A few days ago a payment of 50,000 euros was made to the company to ensure that the telephones at the Local Police, fire station and Mayor's office weren't cut off too.


500 British residents demonstrated in Almeria

Posted On Monday, January 12, 2009 0 comments

British residents of Almería, demonstrated on Friday in Almeria and marched to the offices of the Regional Government Housing Delegate in the city.The march was organized by AULAN, Abusos Urbanisticos Almanzora, No, and came a year to the day that the house belonging to the British couple, Len and Helen Prior was knocked down. Luis Caparrós, the Housing and Town Planning delegate met representatives from the march, including the Priors. He gave an undertaking to find a solution for the couple and this week will see a technical meeting with their lawyers. The Priors are demanding compensation for the loss of their home, they have spent the last year living in a caravan on the site.Many of the demonstrators arrived in Almería city on buses fleeted from the areas of Los Gallardos, Albox, Vera and Cantoria. As well as compensation for the Priors the British are demanding stable water and power supplies, and a final plan to regularize the homes. They consider the current census being carried out by the Junta, reported to be 60% complete over the estimated 5,000 illegal homes in the area, a step in the right direction, but want to know what will happen next. On that point the Housing and Town Planning Delegate made a call for calm.AULAN and Ciudadanos Europeos spokesman, Lenox Napier, said that the British wanted to a buy a home and continue to live in it, without worrying if someone is coming along to knock it down, expropriate it, or to say it is illegal. He said that there were many forms of corruption, fraud and swindle in the province.


Juan Antonio Roca,has a placed reserved for him in Marbella Town Hall

Posted On Monday, January 12, 2009 0 comments


ex Municipal Real Estate Assessor, Juan Antonio Roca, has a job to go to when he is released from prison. He has a placed reserved for him in Marbella Town Hall and they say that legally they are unable to sack him.Roca was promised a place in a local municipal body when the department he worked in, the Gerencia de Obras, was dissolved in 2006. At that time his wage was 9,000 € a month, and even though he was suspended from employment by the commission which ran the Town Hall when the scandal broke, according to El País he still conserves his place.The Partido Popular controlled Marbella Town Hall spokesman, Felix Romero, are waiting to see whether Roca decides to take up the post or not when he comes out of prison and say they will act as a consequence of his decision then. The Socialist opposition in the town considers however that Roca can be sacked now as a disciplinary matter.


Saturday, January 10, 2009

Toll charge on the Costa del Sol motorway has been increased by between 3.5 and five per cent

Posted On Saturday, January 10, 2009 0 comments

Toll charge on the Costa del Sol motorway has been increased by between 3.5 and five per cent on the Malaga-Estepona stretch following the approval by the Development Ministry. This means that drivers of cars or motorbike riders will now have to pay 3.75 euros between Malaga and Marbella as opposed to the 3.60 euros it cost in 2008, which is a 4.1 per cent increase. This is the standard tariff between October and May, except during Holy Week.Throughout the rest of the year a fee of 6.10 euros between Malaga and Marbella (+ 4.2 per cent) will be in force. Drivers travelling on the Malaga-Calahonda or Calahonda-Marbella stretch will pay a standard fee of 2.35 euros (+ 4.4 per cent), and 3.80 euros (+4.1 per cent) during the peak holiday season. There will be a standard charge of 2.55 euros (+3.5 per cent) and a peak charge of 4.15 euros (+ 5 per cent) between Marbella and Estepona, and between Marbella and San Pedro, or San Pedro and Estepona, drivers will face charges of 1.40 euros and 2.40 euros respectively.


Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Juan Antonio Roca charges of embezzlement, money laundering and bribery. That trial will begin sometime in 2009.

Posted On Wednesday, January 07, 2009 0 comments

The Roca years will have a long-term effect on the economy of Marbella, says Angeles Munoz, who was elected mayor in 2007. Even in Marbella’s waterfront Puerto Banus area, where tourists stop to have their pictures taken in front of Maseratis or megayachts, real estate prices are down 30 percent from their peaks in late 2006.







After a century-old extradition treaty with the U.K. expired in 1978, Marbella also became a haven for British criminals. Charlie Wilson, who was convicted for participating in the Great Train Robbery, moved to Marbella in 1984 after serving 10 years of a 30- year prison sentence. Wilson, 57, was shot to death at his villa in 1990. Until shortly before Roca’s arrival, Marbella had also been known for the drug dealers and prostitutes who plied their trades on its streets. Mayor Jesus Gil changed all that. Elected on a platform of cleaning up crime, Gil wanted to attract more wealth to the town whose population was then less than half the current 200,000. “All Gil cared about was capturing investment to create jobs and wealth and boost the economy in Marbella,” says Antonio Romero, a former lawmaker in the regional parliament of Andalusia, which includes Marbella. “He didn’t ask or care where the money came from.” Romero says Gil visited Russia in a bid to attract new capital from the gangsters emerging from the ruins of the Soviet Union. Gil hired Roca, a stocky man with dark, greased-back hair splashed with white around the temples, as the head of a property management company owned by the city, Planeamiento 2000, in 1992. The two men then used the company to siphon off 36 million euros from city coffers, according to a press note issued by the National Court on behalf of the prosecutors. Roca took bribes for granting building permits and adjudicating public works contracts at inflated prices to bidders who would pay him under the table, according to Torres, the prosecuting magistrate in Marbella. In the July 2007 indictment, Torres says Roca accepted 230,000 euros from a car-leasing company in exchange for awarding it a contract to provide vehicles to city officials. Roca allowed the leasing company to inflate the rates it charged the town, the indictment says. Roca also sold at a cheap price to his holding companies undeveloped land that belonged to the town, prosecutors say. He then reclassified it as suitable for development and resold it at a huge markup to another developer. For example, Roca bought one parcel of land from the city in 2001 for 132,222 euros, according to Torres’s July 2007 indictment. After reclassification, he sold the land for 1.8 million euros, the indictment says. As Roca built his wealth, Gil became embroiled in a graft scandal and resigned. (Gil died of a brain hemorrhage in 2004 at the age of 71.) Marbella’s city council elected Julian Munoz to replace Gil. Shortly thereafter, Munoz fired Roca, who then rallied support from the other city council members to oust Munoz. In 2003, the council elected a new mayor who had Roca’s backing. Marisol Yague, a 54-year-old mother of three and professional folk singer, had been on the city council since 1991. Torres described her in a March 31, 2006, decree as “just a puppet” in Roca’s hands. She was accused of bribery and fraud in the July 2007 indictment. Her lawyer, Pablo Luna, didn’t return phone calls seeking comment. He said in 2006 that she was innocent. As demand for new construction grew, so did the power of municipal firms like Roca’s across Spain. In many places, it could take as much as four years before a developer had all the permits required to begin work on a site, Instituto de Empresa’s Torre says. Builders such as Aifos would start work on projects under the assumption that they would get all of the necessary permits before it came time to occupy the building. Once the builder had spent heavily on the construction, Roca would demand a bribe in return for the permits, prosecutors say. “Roca’s biggest talent was that he knew how to wait,” says Francisco Benitez, former director of institutional relations for Aifos. “He’d wait until a developer had invested a huge amount of money in a half-finished project and then swoop in.” Benitez’s former employer paid 5 million euros of bribes to Roca over two years in a bid to get him to license two hotel developments in Marbella and Puerto Banus, according to the indictment. In one case, Aifos exceeded the permitted size for its Gran Hotel Guadalpin Banus by 14,000 square feet (1,300 square meters), according to the indictment, giving Roca the ammunition to shut the project down.
Aifos also paid a bribe of 4.4 million euros as part of a deal to purchase a waste treatment facility from city hall adjacent to land holdings in the Guadaiza area of Marbella, the indictment says. In the end, though, the facility was already pledged against various bank loans and city hall didn’t have the authority to complete the sale, according to the indictment. Aifos lost the 4.4 million euros, the indictment says. In January 2004, Aifos’s sales director, Kiko Garcia, took an envelope stuffed with 180,000 euros in cash to a gas station on the outskirts of Marbella and handed it over to a short, balding man he knew only as Salvador, according to Garcia’s sworn testimony to prosecutors on July 26, 2006. Salvador Gardoqui, one of Roca’s associates, has been charged with money laundering in the case. Gardoqui’s former lawyer, Teodoro Garcia, said his former client had pleaded innocent. Gardoqui’s current lawyer could not be reached. Garcia and Aifos Chairman Jesus Ruiz Casado, who have both been indicted for bribery, declined to comment. Benitez, who hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing, was laid off by Aifos in October as the company battled to stave off bankruptcy after banks cut their lines of credit to the firm following the bribery scandal. As Roca amassed bribes, he began to acquire the trappings of wealth for himself and his wife, Maria Rosa Jimeno Jimenez, and their two children and various friends. Roca’s wife was charged with money laundering. Her lawyer could not be reached. According to prosecutor Torres, Roca said his fortune was worth about 120 million euros and included enormous estates in Cadiz, Ibiza, Madrid, Majorca and Seville as well as various palaces in the capital that he intended to restore and sell as hotels. He also owned an art collection worth tens of millions of euros, including the Miro and works by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.

Roca’s lavish lifestyle drew the attention of investigators including Torres and Oscar Perez, who took over the case from Torres in November 2007. They began probing Roca’s business connections, particularly his possible links to money launderers, according to the 2007 indictment.
In one deal, Roca took a 540,000 euro payment from the Mafia based in Calabria, Italy, while he also did “accounting work” for a drug trafficker identified as Davila, the indictment says. While the investigators closed in, Roca faced additional threats. His Marbella office was broken into in 2005. Roca received an anonymous letter that included a photo collage of his family with all of their heads chopped off, according to testimony from Roca’s bodyguard, Jaime Hachuel. By 2005, rumors were circulating in Marbella that the Russian mafia was menacing the city planning administrator, Hachuel told investigators. “When the mafia saw the net closing in on Roca, their closest collaborator, the threats began,” says Romero, the former lawmaker. “If Roca were to sing, that would spell big trouble for them.” Hachuel, 43, a former member of the Spanish royal guard, spent 32,000 euros on eight encrypted mobile phones to prevent Roca’s calls to his colleagues from being tapped. The security guard was trying to procure equipment to detect bugging devices when police taped a Jan. 26, 2006, meeting between Roca and Marbella businessman Ismael Perez Pena in Madrid’s Villa Magna hotel. At the meeting, Roca promised to boost the fees the town paid for the cars it leased from Pena’s company. Roca also signed over to Pena two beachside apartments owned by the city as a repayment for money owed to his company by city hall. In return, Roca wanted a favor -- help repaying another debt to an unnamed party, according to a police transcript of the meeting. “You remember I told you I had to pay 3 million,” Roca said. “What can you give me of that?” “In Box A, nothing; In Box B, as much as you want,” Pena told him, using the local slang for legal and illegal payments. “I can give you 1.8 million in Box B tomorrow.”
Four days later, police stopped a black Audi A6 sedan leaving the Pena office in Getafe, near Madrid, and found 2 million euros in cash inside two cardboard files wrapped in packing tape. The men inside the car were all Roca associates. Pena was charged with bribery and fraud. Neither Pena nor his lawyer could be reached for comment. On March 29, 2006, police arrested Roca on charges of embezzlement, money laundering and bribery. That trial will begin sometime in 2009. A verdict in his separate trial for embezzling 36 million euros from the city is expected in early 2009.
In the race to build without permits, developers wrecked the coastline and city officials neglected infrastructure such as roads, Munoz, 48, says. “People have lived very, very well here,” she says. “Imagine what it could have been like if they had invested as they should have.”


Tuesday, January 06, 2009

John Vasey was accused of carrying £2.5m of cannabis across the border from Spain

Posted On Tuesday, January 06, 2009 0 comments

John Vasey today told of his shock at being sentenced to five years behind bars.
The lorry driver from Rickleton Village, Washington, was due back before a French court today for an appeal hearing, more than four years after first facing drug smuggling charges. The 48-year-old had just started piecing his life back together after he was accused of carrying £2.5m of cannabis across the border from Spain.After a nightmare 14-month spell in jail after his arrest, and losing his home, business and marriage, he was finally freed on bail in 2004.
He thought his ordeal was over for good, but he told yesterday how he is fighting again to clear his name after being issued fresh court papers.Today John revealed he has been living in silent torture for over a year, after judges found him guilty at a re-trial in October 2007.The dad-of-one was sentenced to five years in prison, which was suspended while he appealed against the verdict.From France, John said: “I was sick to the core when they delivered the verdict.”John returned to England with a brave face, determined to do all he could to win his appeal.But he had a massive task in hand, because under French law, it is up the lorry driver to prove he had no knowledge of the drugs in his load.“You have to prove your innocence, not the other way round,” said John. “They don’t present any witnesses or evidence.“That is why we have taken more photographs, and I have taken my own translator this time because it has been very difficult.“You feel very isolated in there, standing on your own in front of three judges. It is all conducted in French and the paperwork is all in French. We have to pay for everything ourselves to be translated.”It has been a harrowing time for his partner Suzie Eldin, also a lorry driver, who met John through work two years ago and lives with him in Washington.They tried to make the most of Christmas, knowing it could be their last together for a long time.She said: “It has been a long two years for me, but it has been even longer for his family.“It’s so difficult because under French law, you are responsible for what is in the pallets. But that’s like expecting your postman to open your letters and check for anything illegal before putting them through the letterbox.“We made the best of Christmas as we possibly could, just in case he is not here next year. And we had a good new year together too.“We have normal plans for the future like other couples, but our lives have been put on hold with this hanging over us.“John does not talk about it much. We live together, and he hardly discusses it with me. He knows the effect it has had on everyone, and I think he feels that by not talking about it he won’t add to it.”John’s parents Mary and Ken Vasey are desperate for an end to their ordeal, throughout which they have campaigned tirelessly to clear his name.He has also had the constant support of his cousin Sue Austerberry and her husband John, who are both with John in Montpellier in the south of France today.
Grandma-of-seven Mary, of Lambton, Washington, said: “It has taken its toll on our health.“We have both aged a lot throughout it all, and my memory has got a lot worse. I try not to think about it, I just keep busy. John is like me, he buries his head in the sand too.”His family enlisted the help of Newcastle lawyer Clive McKeag at the outset, and he is still fighting John’s case today.Mr McKeag explained why John was granted leave to appeal against his verdict and sentence.He said: “The judge ordered that a whole lot of investigations had to be done. These investigations have never been made, and we are extremely concerned about it.”


Sean Woodhall, 43, a convicted fraudster known as “Slippery Sean”, that he staged the mysterious plane crash.

Posted On Tuesday, January 06, 2009 3 comments


Claims are being made that a group of businessmen who went missing in a mysterious plane crash staged their deaths and fled with 

millions of pounds.The four debt-ridden Britons were officially on board a small Brazilian charter plane that crashed along the country’s coastline last May.A rescue operation was called off when wreckage from the twin-engine Cessna washed up after several days. However, the bodies of the four men and two Brazilian pilots have never been found. The passengers had links to Ocean View Properties that was in financial 

difficulties and one was less than a week away from settling a costly 

divorce.Brazilian authorities are still trying to solve the crash riddle but Foreign Office officials last night confirmed that death certificates had been issued to the British families.


Shipwrecked Zodiac dinghy was spotted roughly 22 miles off Cape Vilano last Wednesday by a passing Portuguese ship

Posted On Tuesday, January 06, 2009 0 comments

Three Spanish men were rescued by the crew of the 'Pesca I' coast guard helipcopter yesterday lunchtime after their shipwrecked Zodiac dinghy was spotted roughly 22 miles off Cape Vilano last Wednesday by a passing Portuguese ship. All three are reported to be well despite suffering from minor injuries and mild hypothermia.
They were taken to Peinador airport in Vigo, from where they were transferred to Meixueiro Hospital Hospital to receive medical attention, but face interrogation after several suspicious packages wrapped in green and brown plastic - which investigators suspect may be drugs - as well as life jackets were spotted close to the wreckage of their vessel off the coast of Corrubedo by the crew of the 'Rosalía' coast guard spotter plane deployed to search for them. It has since been confirmed that two of the men have previous convictions for drug trafficking.


British national who lived in Orihuela found dead in an irrigation canal

Posted On Tuesday, January 06, 2009 0 comments

It has been confirmed that the 18-year-old youth found dead in an irrigation canal in San Miguel de Salinas (Alicante) early yesterday morning was a British national who lived in Orihuela. His body was found on the service road that leads to the Villamartín residential estate at 7.45am, around three quarters of an hour after a passer-by had found his damaged moped and reported a possible accident to the emergency services. It appears that the lad lost control, smashed into a roadside crash barrier, catapulting him into the ditch, and was then swept roughly fifteen metres downstream before coming to rest in mud. Prior to the official post-mortem result, it is believed that the young man was knocked unconscious and drowned.


Sean Woodhall, links to a suspected £100million property scam Ocean View Properties(courtesy ofhttp://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/82370/Vanished)

Posted On Tuesday, January 06, 2009 1 comments


Sean Woodhall, had links to a suspected £100million property scam and was due to settle his divorce within days. Born Sean Lovelock in London in 1965, he grew up in Cambridgeshire but made his business career in the Birmingham area. At 30 he changed his name to his mother’s surname, Woodhall, after a row with his father, Ron.In 1999 he married Victoria McLeod, now 39, and two years later was given an 18-month suspended sentence for his part in a fraud with franchising 

venture Advan.Following that conviction, Woodhall took his heavily pregnant wife to the Costa del Sol where he tapped into Spain’s booming property market.For the next few years he worked closely with Staffordshire-based Ocean View Properties, a company run by his friend Colin Thomas.It sold “off-plan” luxury Spanish apartments to British investors, including star sportsmen such as Aston 

Villa’s Gareth Barry, ex-Leicester City captain Matt Elliott and former 

England cricketer Paul Nixon.The company, which owes more than £100million, is being investigated by the police and the Insolvency Service. According to former business associates, charming Woodhall, who was a serial adulterer, mingled with ruthless Serbian gangsters on the “Costa del Crime” and became one of the area’s most well-known faces.A Spanish lifestyle magazine even featured him as one of the region’s model businessmen. He also became friends with Prince Albert of Monaco and dealt with controversial Spanish developer Ricardo Miranda, who was named by the Sunday Express last month as being a central figure in the alleged Ocean View scam.As funds from Ocean View customers went missing, Miranda and Woodhall, who lived in the same Marbella complex as Sir Mark Thatcher, eyed 

Caribbean business opportunities.The pair pinpointed coastline in the Dominican Republic and planned a £3billion golf resort called Punta Perla.Miranda’s company Paraiso Tropical bought the land while Ocean View and Woodhall’s new organisation, Punta Perla Caribbean Ltd, became UK sales agents. Newcastle United’s Alan Smith is thought to be an investor there.However, Miranda, who performed a ground-breaking ceremony at Punta Perla with Prince Albert and Dominican Republic president Leonel Fernandez on Tuesday, succeeded in squeezing Woodhall out of his project.The Briton then turned his attention to potential luxury resorts in Egypt and Brazil. He replicated Ocean View’s business model by controlling sales, mortgage broking, conveyancing and cash flow through a “one-stop shop” operation, Worldwide Destinations.While in Brazil he engaged businessman Ricky Every to find development sites on the north-east coast which he could market as “eco resorts”.He hoped that would appeal to environmentally aware Prince Albert. Woodhall had met the prince several times after being introduced by Costa del Sol mortgage broker Mark Tout, a former British 

Olympic bobsleigh number one, discredited after admitting taking steroids in 1996.Tout, 47, coached Prince Albert during the royal’s own lengthy Olympic bobsleigh career.Woodhall apparently hoped the donation would trigger an investment appraisal by the foundation’s committee. Among the other potential investors were Kempson, from Cambridgeshire, and Hodges, from Somerset.Together with Woodhall and Every they chartered a plane from Brazilian company Aero Star to fly over the 

potential Barra Nova Pearl eco-resort on May 2 last year.It took off from Salvador in north-east Brazil and the 40-minute flight was due to arrive in the coastal town of Ilheus at 5.43pm local time.Brazilian investigators are still trying to piece together what happened next but the plane apparently lost contact with air traffic controllers eight miles out to sea, nine minutes before its scheduled landing. The pilots had just announced they were switching from flying by instruments to visual observation.Ellen Duarte, business manager for charter company Aero Star, said: “It was flying perfectly. The pilot said he was making a visual approach to the airport, and that was the last we heard.” Eyewitness reports then vary. One said the plane was flying unusually low, while another described it as “a bit out of control” and that it “swung out 

towards the sea and then back towards the forest”.“Not long after, it disappeared,” said student Caliana Mesquita.
Rescue teams searched 400km of sea and rainforest for five days but the search was called off after small pieces of wreckage washed up 60 miles north of Ilheus. No bodies were recovered.

Many of Woodhall’s former associates spoken to by the Sunday Express asked not to be named for fear of 

reprisals. One who knew him from his time in Sutton Coldfield and Solihull described him as “mercenary” and “certainly capable” of faking his death.Others said he had threatened 
with guns people who owed him money on the Costa del Sol.Property internet forums are awash with people also claiming that Woodhall owed them cash and that he is alive. Conspiracy theories range from the outlandish to the more feasible.Some have suggested that all six crew and passengers bailed out before the crash, while others believe that Woodhall, a man so terrified of flying he had to take Valium, never even boarded the Cessna. Aero Star in Brazil has declined to say whether there is proof that the group boarded the plane. However, Woodhall’s former wife Victoria, who returned to Walsall with their two young children in 2006 when she discovered he had been having affairs, is disgusted at the conspiracy theories.Even though she was left without a penny in maintenance because her decree nisi failed to materialise, she is convinced he is dead.She said: “I’ve been told that the plane went down into the sea from 4,000ft. That would be like hitting a brick wall. Everything would just disintegrate.” Victoria added: “I’ve never thought for one second it could be anything more than an accident. When you know the man the way I do, there’s no way he’d jump out in a parachute.“He loved being the centre of attention, he’d never give up his lifestyle and his friends, which is what you’d have to do if you’d faked it.”Ricardo Miranda, Ocean View Properties and Colin Thomas have all strongly denied any wrongdoing. Mr Tout declined to comment and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation could not be contacted.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/82370/Vanished-conman-faked-death-


Missing Amy Fitzpatrick father in Ireland

Posted On Tuesday, January 06, 2009 0 comments

Could you please put information on your website about Missing Amy Fitzpatrick father in Ireland He has now hired a private detective to help in the search for Amy
Anyone with information can contact Private Investigator Liam A Brady.www.liamabrady.ie .


peaceful protest march in Almeria

Posted On Tuesday, January 06, 2009 0 comments

peaceful protest march in Almeria
City this Friday, January 9th 2009 - a year exactly after Len and Helen Prior's house
was demolished by the Junta de Andalucía. It's being organised by AULAN, AUAN (both anti-property abuse associations in Almeria), Ciudadanos Europeos and others. This is our first big opportunity to show that the arbitrary treatment towards property owners must be stopped.


Peaceful protest march in Almeria

Posted On Tuesday, January 06, 2009 0 comments

peaceful protest march in Almeria
City this Friday, January 9th 2009 - a year exactly after Len and Helen Prior's house
was demolished by the Junta de Andalucía. It's being organised by AULAN, AUAN (both anti-property abuse associations in Almeria), Ciudadanos Europeos and others. This is our first big opportunity to showthat the arbitrary treatment towards property owners must be stopped.


Saturday, January 03, 2009

Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Thani had €50m stolen from his account at Barclays in Marbella

Posted On Saturday, January 03, 2009 2 comments

Barclays has settled a legal claim raised by a senior member of the Qatari ruling family over an alleged €50m (£48m) fraud. The settlement, which has been secretly thrashed out over the past few weeks, related to claims from Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Thani, brother of the Emir of Qatar, that €50m had been stolen from his account at Barclays in Marbella between 2001 and 2003. The sheikh's wife Princess Kasia Al-Thani, who first discovered the fraud and has been spearheading the legal action,
The case was a cause of embarrassment for Barclays, headed by John Varley, which had been battling the sheikh's claims while raising billions of pounds from Qatar's state investment funds. The bank recently turned to Qatar for the bulk of its £7bn capital raising. Qatar also backed a £4bn fund-raising by the bank earlier this year. Last month Barclays was reportedly ordered to post €20m as security with a Spanish court as part of a legal battle. At the time a settlement was said to be still some way off after a letter from the sheikh in the summer which vowed he would pursue every legal route possible to recover his money. The sheikh, who is now a minister attached to the embassy in Paris and who was Qatar's Opec representative, accused Barclays of gross negligence for allowing an employee of his to take about €4m a month from a personal account in Marbella. The sheikh claims a former employee set up a bank account at Barclays' Marbella branch, using his own name and the sheikh's. The sheikh claims he had no knowledge of this and his signature was forged. It is alleged money from another of his accounts was siphoned to the joint account, and later withdrawn or transferred to Monaco, the British Virgin Islands and Switzerland. Despite the sums allegedly involved, the billionaire sheikh did not notice until his wife spotted the irregularities. Princess Kasia said: "I just saw some papers on my husband's desk and noticed something was wrong. We added the figures and found all the money we thought had been going into the bank had been going straight back out again." She said: "People said I was mad. But I strongly believe there is a gap in the market for an easy and efficient service with a range of gifts you would want yourself. We've been taking sales for a month and already we've had 95,000 hits and strong sales. Of course people are being more cautious but this is a long-term business." Barclays declined to comment about the claim.


LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...