Madrid, police shoot and wound armed man.

José Luis AT, was shot by police after waving and firing a weapon at them in the Madrid district of Hortaleza, reported a spokesman for Police Headquarters. The man, who had previous convictions for theft and violence, poor was admitted to the Clinical Hospital in Madrid after receiving at least four bullet wounds in the lower limbs of his body, including the buttocks and abdomen. The event occurred from 1700 hours today at number 6 Calle Manizales, when an anonymous caller alerted police to the presence in the way of a man who brandished a gun in his hand.
A National Police patrol moved in and asked this man to take out his hands from his pockets and to raise his arms, the man responded with several bursts of gunfire.
In this situation, the officers then had to use force to subdue the man. At the scene police found a bag in which he had several guns and knives

Murder of a young Dominican in Madrid has helped galvanize that immigrant community.

23-year-old Luis Carlos Polanco Peralta died last Friday after being shot twice in the neck. Madrid police arrested the alleged shooter who is of Spanish decent who worked as a private security guard. The exact motive for the murder is unknown, though police said that the assailant confused Polanco Peralta with a drug dealer.
Several hundreds mourners held a silent vigil for Polanco Peralta and clamored for justice to be served. Among those who took part in it where his widow who is expecting their child to be born next month and his mother who said that he “never messed around with anybody.” Some even compared Polanco Peralta’s murder to that of Lucrecia Pérez- another Dominican immigrant who in 1992 was murdered in an ugly bias attack.Polanco Peralta was killed in an area of the Tetuán district lined with bars and frequented by Latin Americans migrants. The neighborhood itself has been the scene of tensions between the growing immigrant community and traditional residents. As one old-timer callously observed:“There are daily brawls among them. They do not respect anyone. All they want to do is boss around. Now they cry out for justice over the death of that boy. What more do they want if, for starters, the shooter has already been detained! ” grumbled an elderly resident walking down the street. –

24 people, all Spaniards, have been arrested so far in a civil guard operation, codenamed Mansion, against organised crime in Madrid

24 people, all Spaniards, have been arrested so far in a civil guard operation, codenamed Mansion, against organised crime in Madrid. The burglary of a house in Griñon led to the Guardia Civil identifying the group which operated in three different groups, assaulting private homes in the Madrid region and even stealing from lorries when in roadside rest areas.Investigations also link the group to theft from industrial estates, and new charges against them have not been ruled out.

Police in Spain are investigating $125,000 in missing designer jewelry last seen on Winona Ryder

It seems that the Police in Spain are investigating $125,000 in missing designer jewelry last seen on Winona Ryder at an event on Sunday. She was loaned an incredible Bulgari bracelet and ring to wear to a Marie Claire event in Spain last weekend. Now the jewelry is apparently missing.Supposedly Winona left the diamond encrusted bracelet and ring in an envelope and handed them to front desk staff at her Madrid hotel. But closed circuit TV doesn’t show her returning anything.
And even though Winona was arrested for shoplifting at Saks Fifth Avenue in 2001 and there was this incident with a CVS Pharmacy, police are not considering Winona a suspect in the jewelry case at this time.

David and Victoria Beckham can't sell their mansion in Madrid dropped the asking price to £3m

David and Victoria Beckham can't sell their mansion in Madrid. The Beckhams have been trying to sell their luxury villa for 17 months but have yet to find a buyer.
The Beckhams' five bedroom villa in Madrid was put on the market last year when they left Spain for the US, according to the Daily Star.Posh and Becks were asking £5m for their property, dubbed 'Casa Beckham', but there have been no offers. As a result they have dropped the asking price to £3m."The house is incredible, but the market is in such a terrible state right now and the Beckhams have had no offers....They're going to have to take a lot less than the original price to have a realistic chance of selling the house," a source told the paper.The Madrid mansion is set in two acres and has an outdoor heated swimming pool, tennis courts, a small football pitch and a play area. The property is located in the suburb of La Moraleja.
The Beckhams paid £4.5m for the villa in May 2005 and spent £500,000 refurbishing it. The home was put up for sale when David signed a £125m contract with football team LA Galaxy."It's a lovely place with lots of charm, beautifully and tastefully decorated," the source continued."But even the super rich have been hit hard by the credit crunch."

Spanish police interrupted the wedding banquet of a suspected drug trafficker, detaining him and 10 guests

Spanish police interrupted the wedding banquet of a suspected drug trafficker, detaining him and 10 guests, police said Tuesday. Police used the wedding party in Madrid to capture all the suspects, most of whom were Colombian citizens. The ring was suspected of importing cocaine hidden in shipments of legal merchandise, distributing it in Spain and legalising the actions by using real companies as a cover. Nineteen other people were held earlier in Spain and Colombia. Spanish police took 250 kilos of cocaine in a previous phase of the operation, which was launched in 2006.

Two of Spain's respected savings banks, 'La Caixa' in Barcelona and 'Caja Madrid,' were found liable,

A six month trial has led to the conviction of eight people, on charges of fraud and embezzlement in the 'Gescartera' brokerage house, during June 2001. Gescartera was rumbled and lost its licence, when it was discovered that over 100 million euros of some 2,000 clients' money was missing. The collapse caused massive political unrest and the resignations of the Junior Finance Minister and President of Stock market regulator 'CNMV.' Judges passed prison terms of between 3 and 11 years to those concerned, while penalties totalling 88 million euros were ordered to be paid out to investors who lost money, including various churches and charities. Two of Spain's respected savings banks, 'La Caixa' in Barcelona and 'Caja Madrid,' were also found liable, having handled the majority of the fraudulent transactions. Two of their employees were among those convicted. A Parliamentary enquiry overruled any Government responsibility for the operation.

syndicate had been using Madrid as its centre in Europe and recruited Malaysian women as couriers to Brazil, Australia, Mexico and China.

On Thursday, Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said the ministry would seek Interpol's assistance in tracking international syndicates using Malaysian women as drug couriers.The previous day, it was reported that more than 20 Malaysian women in their 20s were detained by a drug syndicate in a house in Madrid.
The syndicate had been using Madrid as its centre in Europe and recruited Malaysian women as couriers to Brazil, Australia, Mexico and China.
It was believed that three African men and a Malaysian were key players in the plan to lure the women with promises of lucrative pay by working overseas.Two of their victims -- Norfaizura Azura Md Lias, 21, from Pangkor, Perak, and Dayang Sakienah Mat Lazim, 20, from Bukit Payung, Terengganu -- were detained by Malta police recently.

Two men dressed as beggars managed to slip through the door

As the first clients of the day were ushered out of the locked door of a jeweller’s shop in the Madrid suburb of Alcobendas on March 17, two men dressed as beggars managed to slip through the door. Once inside they threatened the owner at gunpoint and gagged him before rifling through the showcases and running off with valuable items. The owner immediately summoned the police but although two patrol cars combed the area, they failed to locate the raiders, confirming suspicions that the men were dressed normally under shabby clothing, which they discarded before mingling with shoppers. This was the twentieth jewel robbery since the beginning of January and latest in a wave of raids in the Madrid area that began at the end of 2007.

Equatorial Guinean opposition leader Severo Moto to retain the status of a political refugee

Spain's Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Equatorial Guinean opposition leader Severo Moto to retain the status of a political refugee despite his implication in coup attempts against the regime of President Teodoro Obiang. The court revoked a 2006 decision by the Spanish government to lift the status of a political refugee that Moto had enjoyed in Spain since 1986. Had the court not agreed with Moto's appeal against the decision, the politician, who claims to be under persecution by the Obiang regime, would have had to leave Spain. Moto is one of the top opposition politicians in Equatorial Guinea, a Spanish-speaking, oil-rich Central African country of around half a million residents.

Spanish police have arrested six Chinese citizens in the country's biggest operation

Spanish police have arrested six Chinese citizens in the country's biggest operation against DVD and CD piracy so far, police said Wednesday. The ring was capable of producing 80,000 pirate copies of CDs and DVDs and of earning EUR 240,000 daily.
Police discovered a clandestine production site and three warehouses in the Madrid region. Police have carried out about 20 major operations against audiovisual piracy over the past five years.

Roman Stanislaw Szalachowski, a 40-year-old Polish man, to six years in prison for killing one of his five housemates

On Tuesday, a judge in Alcalá de Henares, northeast of Madrid, sentenced Roman Stanislaw Szalachowski, a 40-year-old Polish man, to six years in prison for killing one of his five housemates, the Ukranian Mykola Stelmakh, on April 10, 2004, and hiding the body for almost two weeks before disposing of it.
An argument about who was going to do the household chores ended in murder and the subsequent quartering of a housemate's body for convenient disposal.
According to testimony during the trial, an argument broke out because Stelmakh "did not cooperate in the household chores."Then Szalachowski, who was drunk, "began to punch and kick the victim in the face, head and abdomen."Next he took him to the yard behind the house, where he went on beating him, and tied a cord around his neck, attaching one end of it to an iron set in the wall.
"Szalachowski raised his head from the ground and held it in the air," killing his housemate, in the words of the sentence released on Tuesday. Szalachowski's rage did not end there. The convicted man "moved the body to a tool shed and left it there, covering it with a board." There it remained until 19 April, more than a week after the murder.Then Szalachowski hacked the body into pieces to dispose of it. He separated the head from the trunk, cutting off the arms and the lower part of the legs. During the night of 20 April, Szalachowski "put the trunk in a sports bag, and dumped it in a garbage bin near the house." The next day, at six in the morning, he disposed of the rest, dropping it in another garbage bin about 200 metres away from the house.Six hours later, about noon, two women found the remains in the bin, when they lifted the lid and saw a man's head inside. Shocked, they ran to a nearby cafeteria and called the police.Two days later the police arrested the five housemates of the victim, including Szalachowski, who turned out to be the killer.
During the trial, the man confessed his crime.
The judge gave him a six-year prison sentence after ruling that his intoxicated state was an extenuating circumstance."His intellectual and volitional faculties were seriously impaired due to the previous consumption of alcoholic beverages," was the judge's reasoning.

black cocaine are being smuggled to Spain

Increasing amounts of black cocaine are being smuggled to Spain, with police discovering couriers of the drug which is undetectable to sniffer dogs and regular tests, the daily El Mundo reported on Tuesday.Police detained two Romanian women whose bags had inner linings made with the rubber-like substance, press reports said.
Flying in from Brazil, the women made a stopover in Portugal, deliberately left their bags at Lisbon airport, and then requested them to be brought to a Madrid hotel, in an attempt to mislead police.Police seized 16 kilos of the drug. The haul, which was destined for the Dutch market, was estimated to be worth a million euros.
Black cocaine is a combination of regular cocaine and various chemicals, making it very difficult to detect.