Dean Rice sits between two armed and masked Spanish police officers, his hands tied behind his back. He has just been arrested in the small Andalusian town of Alhaurin and is about to return to Britain to start a life sentence for a grim kidnapping that occurred in Kent in 2006 and of which he was convicted in his absence. He must have thought that, using various aliases, he had managed to hide himself amongst the many expats in the area but he was rumbled by a neighbour in February and arrested in a morning raid.
Rice is the latest to fall foul of Operation Captura, launched jointly five years ago by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and the charity Crimestoppers which offers anonymity for tip-offs on the whereabouts of villains. "Don't let UK criminals became a handicap in Spain," was how the scheme was originally launched, alongside a picture of a retired gent on a coastal golf course. Since then, expats have help to shop 40 of the 60 most wanted.
No rewards are paid to members of the public who tip off the police but the response so far has been remarkable. Dave Cording, Crimestoppers' Director of Operations said: "For many years, Spain has been an appealing sunny hideaway for British criminals escaping justice. But this all changed in 2004 when European Arrest Warrants came into effect, making it easier to bring British criminals back into the UK's criminal justice system."
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