377 stolen beehives valued at more than €60,000

Two people have been arrested and warrants have been issued against two others after 377 stolen beehives valued at more than €60,000 were discovered at an illegal honey farm near Cúllar (Granada) on the 17th October. The hives had been stolen from seven bee farms in Villacastín (Segovia), Navas de San Antonio (Segovia), Honrubia (Cuenca), Puerto Lumbreras (Murcia) and Orihuela (Alicante). Only six farmers reported the theft of their hives and as...

Analysis of the plastic showed that it consisted mainly of polymethyl methacrylate (better known as plexiglas or perspex) laced with cocaine hydrochlo

THEY'VE tried airbags, printer cartridges and every conceivable body cavity. Now cocaine smugglers have another trick up their sleeves. Evidence from a clandestine lab in eastern Europe suggests that gangs are trying to hide cocaine by incorporating it into a host of innocent-looking transparent plastic consumer products, such as fish tanks, DVD cases or light fittings for cars. These could be imported en masse with no customs officer giving them...

British colony of Gibraltar off Spain's southern tip. Upon entering Spanish waters, the boat was ordered to the nearby Spanish port of Algeciras for

Spain's Civil Guard said officers approached the vessel, the Odyssey Explorer, as it left the British colony of Gibraltar off Spain's southern tip. Upon entering Spanish waters, the boat was ordered to the nearby Spanish port of Algeciras for inspection, police said.The Civil Guard said it was acting on an order from a Spanish judge who in June instructed authorities to seize two vessels belonging to Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. if the boats...

arrested 30 people in an operation against child pornography on the internet

Spain's Civilian Police have arrested 30 people in an operation against child pornography on the internet, an official source said Wednesday. "It is the largest operation against child pornography in Spain's history," said Fernando Herrero-Tejedor, the prosecutor designated by the Criminality Information Service (SCI). "Operation Santiago" ended on Tuesday with the confiscation of 81 computers which had "explicit sex" archives, including "very dense...

stealing hundreds of electricity-generating solar panels worth $2.14 million

Spanish investigators arrested 20 Moroccans suspected of stealing hundreds of electricity-generating solar panels worth $2.14 million and sending them to be sold in North Africa, police said Thursday.The suspects are accused of taking about 2,000 solar panels and shipping them to Morocco aboard ferries.An investigation began in April when 238 panels were stolen from two solar power parks in the northern province of Palencia, a police statement said....

seven dead migrants and one survivor on board

Fishermen said they discovered a boat off West Africa with seven dead migrants and one survivor on board. Spanish authorities said Thursday about 50 others were missing. The Spanish fishing vessel found the boat off West Africa on Wednesday night, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said at a news conference. He said at least six migrants were dead, and that a survivor said 50 people were missing. However, skipper Jose Maria Abreu earlier told...

30 bundles of marihuana weighing, in total, around 1,000kg,

28 year old Dutch man was arrested on Saturday evening after 30 bundles of marihuana weighing, in total, around 1,000kg, were found in the back of the stolen car he was driving. The man was stopped at 8pm on the AP-7 toll motorway near Orihuela in Alicante rovince after a police traffic patrol realised that the BMW X5 he was driving, had been reported stolen from Guadalajara last February. Following a short chase during which several other vehicles...

56th domestic violence murder in Spain so far this year and the 8th in the Andalucía region.

33 year old woman was found dead at her home on the calle Enamorados in Sevilla's Bellavista district yesterday morning. The woman, who had spent the night with a former lover, appears to have been strangled to death. Her ex-boyfriend, who is an Argentinian of around the same age, took the dead woman's car and remains at large. A spokeswoman from the Andalucía Women's Institute (IAM) said that the couple had separated some time ago. If confirmed,...

Fernando del Valle, 57, a Chilean citizen, who is said to have set up a network of property and front companies whose traces disappear into offshore a

Fernando del Valle, 57, a Chilean citizen, who is said to have set up a network of property and front companies whose traces disappear into offshore accounts in the nearby British territory of Gibraltar, press reports said.Some of the welter of documents seized by police since the weekend are understood to implicate an array of companies who have their fiscal base in Gibraltar. The tiny territory has just 30,000 residents but 80,000 companies.Police...

Fernando del Valle

Fernando del Valle arrived on the Marbella real estate scene in the late 1970s - early 1980s, after a brief stint practicing law in Madrid. In the coming years Del Valle, an aficionado of fine food and classical music, would become a key player in the booming real estate market in the southern coast of Spain. According to Per Stangeland, head of criminology at the University of Málaga, in a recent Financial Times article said there is a direct link...

Interpol report notes

an Interpol report notes: "There is an exceptionally large number of Estonian and Russian professional criminals carrying out, besides a large scale hashish and cocaine trafficking, remarkable sex business in the numerous hotels and restaurants of Costa del Sol." Meanwhile, according to Online Security, "Italian crime groups' longtime investments in real estate and entertainment enterprises--particularly gambling casinos--in Germany, France, Monaco,...

an associate of Stephen Sugg had contacted his family to say he was safe.

ONE doubting detective has called it The Spanish Job. The rumoured abduction of the notorious Westies in Alicante could be a con job.That’s the fear among a number of gardaí who have had long dealings with Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg, the two leaders of the Westies crime gang.“It could be an elaborate hoax, something set up by a couple of them to take pressure off Coates, who, if he comes back here, will be arrested. If he disappears, he doesn’t...

Irishman Tony Armstrong

The Guardia Civil yesterday arrested 36 year old Irishman Tony Armstrong, implying that he was involved with the deaths of two fellow Irishmen whose bodies were uncovered in Catral Sources stated that Armstrong had rented the warehouse where the bodies of Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg were discovered In Spain they hooked up with other Irish and British criminals on the run and became involved with Moroccan thugs in drug running operations from...

discovered two tons of hashish on board

The Spanish Customs Service yesterday stopped and searched a yacht some 60 nautical miles off Torrevieja and discovered two tons of hashish on board. Consequently, they demanded that the craft follow them to the nearest port, when it was deliberately set on fire by the four people on board, with two of them jumping overboard, but were rescued by a Zodiac from the Customs service, who also managed to extinguish the blaze. The partially burned yacht...

drug traffickers to get away

Police sources yesterday were said to be ‘furious’ that due to a lack of coordination between two Ministries – Interior that controls the Guardia Civil and Finance that controls the Customs Police – enabled drug traffickers to get away. It was last Tuesday when a group was discovered unloading more than a ton of Hashish on Bonmati beach between Santa Pola and Elche, and placing the cargo inside a powerful BMW car. The customs service had already...

bodies are of Stephen Sugg and Shane Coates

Members of the National Police and the Guardia Civil have revealed that they have come across two bodies in Catral in Alicante Province. Members of the Gardai – the Irish Police Force – who are in Spain and collaborating with the security forces have expressed the belief that the bodies are of Stephen Sugg and Shane Coates, two members of the notorious Westies Drug Gaming that went missing from their homes in Torrevieja more than two years ago. The...

petty theft, such as bag snatching is commonplace

petty theft, such as bag snatching is commonplace, particularly in tourist resorts and big cities. Most of this can be avoided with a little forethought - carry valuables under your clothes if possible and watch for people who get unnecessarily close to you at airports, at stations, on trains or buses or on the street. Never leave baggage unattended and avoid crushes. Also be cautious with people who come up to offer or ask you something for no good...

Watch out for burglars

A friend of mine had a really bad experience recently. He has a villa in the Mijas area and in the early hours of the morning whilst he was sleeping, some young foreigners broke through the bars of one of his windows and got in the house.The really scary thing was that they jumped on his bed, put a knife to his throat and then tied him up. They were really after money and after spotting a safe in the house demanded that he open it. The problem was...

Crime Scene

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unidentified British man aged 29 and a woman aged 21

unidentified British man aged 29 and a woman aged 21 died when they tried to cross the A-7 highway near Puerto Banús around 6 am last Saturday. They were trying to cross near the Tigermarket petrol station and the Hotel Rui when they were hit by a car. They were only 300 metres away from an underground pedestrian tunn...

The Guardia Civil de Trafico have reported that nearly 400 drivers failed the breathalyser test

The Guardia Civil de Trafico have reported that nearly 400 drivers failed the breathalyser test in Andalucia from midnight on Friday, August 10th to midnight on Sunday, August 12th. In the provinces of Seville, Huelva, Cadiz and Cordoba, 186 drivers tested positive, and another 189 in Granada, Jaen, Malaga and Almeria. Malaga drivers were the second largest group of losers in the points system in Andalucia. Since it was implemented last July, they...

half the robberies in the summer involve credit cards

According to a recent study, Andalucia is the second worst area in Spain for robberies and lost credit cards involving tourists and Malaga province has the worst record for handbag snatchers. These prefer foreign tourists of either sex, especially at airports, while their Spanish victims tend to be men aged between 45 and 54. More than half the robberies in the summer involve credit car...

40-year-old Briton was arrested at his home in Manilva

40-year-old Briton was arrested at his home in Manilva last week accused of running over a Guardia Civil officer at the border with Gibraltar. The man allegedly drove off in his convertible Porsche Carrera after being asked to pull over at the vehicle checkpoint. The officer jumped onto the rear bumper of the Porsche in an attempt to stop him and clung on for almost a kilometre but jumped off when her realised the car was not going to slow down....

“sons of Spain”.

Al Qaeda’s Number Two, Al Zawahiri, once again referred to the terrorist movement’s intention of recovering “Al-Andalus”, a name that is generally considered to mean Andalucia, although it was the name for original Moorish invaders gave to the the whole of Spain. In an 80-minute video broadcast over the Internet, Al Zawahiri also called for Morocco and Algeria to be cleansed of the “sons of Spain”. The regional government of Ceuta, one of the two...

Spanish Bank thieving? Caution

One Friday lunch time in April 2006 I left the Notary in Torrox Costa with a cheque for €18,000 after selling my flat. This was to be the deposit for my new permanent home in Spain.I placed the cheque, which was made out in my name, into my handbag and left it there till the following Monday when I was to put it into my bank account.On arriving at the bank I discovered I had lost the cheque. After a thorough search I phoned my solicitor who immediately...

rapist of Valle de Hebron

The so-called “rapist of Valle de Hebron” who was released from jail in Barcelona on September 22nd has left the town of Iznalloz in Granada province where he was reported to be staying with relatives because of pressure from the town’s residents. José Rodriguez Salvador had served 16 years of a 20-year sentence for raping 16 women and had resisted all attempts to rehabilitate him. More than 500 people gathered outside his uncle’s house in Iznalloz...

mayor Julian Muñoz’s

Marbella judge, óscar Pérez ordered ex-Marbella mayor Julian Muñoz’s release from Jaén prison on the condition that he put up jail of 50,000 euros. The ruling was made in connection with a case separate from the ‘Caso Malaya’ urban planning crimes he is accused of. The bail was set in relation to money laundering crimes in which his current partner, Isabel Pantoja, and ex wife, Maite Zaldívar, are also involved. The judge also said that if released...

Villa Libertad

has been created in order for you to be able to forget the daily stress of life’s problems for as long as you would like to. We are offering some of the best service available. In order to do so, we have created our own webpage to be in closer contact with you and benefit from your feed back to make our services better all the time. Villa Libertad has six air conditioned rooms, swimming pool, jacuzzi, bar and gardens. The house is in an area, private...

Space disco in Tarifa

security guard who was serious injured at the Space disco in Tarifa continues in intensive care at the Puerta del Mar hospital in Cádiz but is said to be making satisfactory progress. On August 24 the guard, a local Tarifa man, was found by one of the owners of the disco brutally beaten and stabbed. He was semi-conscious, bound hand and foot, and covered in a blanket. He has been hospitalised with serious breathing problems and a chest infection...

Two wanted criminals were arrested in a Torremolinos

Two wanted criminals were arrested in a Torremolinos drug bust last week. The National Police initially picked up the two men, aged 23 and 24, for drug dealing after officers found 17 packets of cocaine and 80 grams of hash. When a check was run on their names, officers discovered that both men had extensive police records and both had outstanding arrest warran...

illegal-immigration

Guardia Civil officers have made three follow-up arrests in the illegal-immigration case that the week before last saw 10 people, including a National Police officer, arrested in Torremolinos and Benalmádena. The three new arrests were of people involved with the two real estate offices raided during the original police operation. All those arrested in the case have been charged and relea...

string of stick-ups committed with a fake pistol.

The Guardia Civil arrested two men in Mijas last week for a string of stick-ups committed with a fake pistol. The men were picked up in the Molino de Viento neighbourhood, where they both live, at 2am Wednesday morning. Authorities say the two used the fake gun, which was recovered during the arrests, to hold up numerous pedestrians in neighbouring Fuengir...

overnight robbery at a Cártama petrol station

The Guardia Civil have arrested two men in connection with the death of a 65-year-old night watchman whose body was found on the morning of September 24 after an overnight robbery at a Cártama petrol station. The arrest of the two suspects, both local Guadalhorce Valley men, came after investigators reviewed the filling station’s security camera tapes from the night of the incide...

Briton found guilty of Mijas double murder

A British man, who has not been named for legal reasons, who stood accused of murdering a married couple of the same nationality, with whom he lived in Mijas, has been found guilty by the ju...

Marbella

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Illegally siphoned funds from Russia's crippled oil company Yukos

41 arrests of nationals from six countries who allegedly have "numerous connections between groups of organised international crimes and a number of suspects implicated in Spain or abroad in serious criminal activities".Illegally siphoned funds from Russia's crippled oil company Yukos had been discovered as part of the investigation, something the oil company has denied.One of the key suspects is the head of the law firm, Fernando del Valle, 57,...

A 34-year-old businessman was shot to death

A 34-year-old businessman was shot to death in Castalla in Alicante Province on Thursday night. The man, who apparently owned a construction business, was shot in his home in what police believe was a settling of accounts between drug barons. Following the shooting, police discovered two kilos of cocaine in the home, along with machinery for preparing small doses of the drug as well as 200 ecstasy table...

A 63-year-old Dutchman was detained

A 63-year-old Dutchman was detained yesterday in Alfas del Pi following an international arrest warrant issued by France for drug trafficking and organising criminal gangs. He is also considered to be the head of the organization two of whose members were discovered driving a truck and a car loaded with drugs at a motorway toll station in France last year. In that operation, two tons of cannabis resin was confiscated. Sources have stated that following...

arrested Francisco Javier Martinez Sanmillan

arrested Francisco Javier Martinez Sanmillan the most wanted man in Spain, after a close examination of a series of fingerprints. He had been ‘on the lam’ for twelve years. He had also managed to elude capture in ‘Operation Necora’ against the Galician drug Cartels, and also ‘Operation Temple’ which was carried out against the Columbian cartels operating in Spain. He is expected to appear in court today, and his arrest was a considerable triumph...

detained the head of the Municipal police

The Guardia Civil of Torrevieja yesterday detained the head of the Municipal police force along with his deputy and two officers, after receiving orders to do so from a local judge. More arrests are expected today, and all are accused of creating a series of false documents and of failing to investigate crimes. A local judge has undertaken the current case during the last few months, and yesterday’s arrests were carried out very discreetly according...

two people in Morocco alleged to be behind the Zotob virus

Microsoft's cyber-crime unit has had some notable successes to date, having taken action against 150 spammers, tracked down the Sasser virus author, caught the two people in Morocco alleged to be behind the Zotob virus that hit some major US corporations including American Express, and nabbed a Bulgarian phishing ga...

The 32 year old man from Marbella

The father of a fourteen-month girl found dead in a wooded area near Istán (Málaga) shortly after midnight yesterday was arrested on a charge of imprudent homicide and will remain in custody for a further 48 hours following a preliminary court ruling earlier today. The 32 year old man from Marbella turned up in Istán, at around 8.30pm last Saturday night; drunk, hysterical and covered in blood and bruises, claiming that he had lost his daughter as...

forced to throw overboard the bodies of eleven others

One of the survivors from the immigrant boat that sank 80 miles south of Fuerteventura has told reporters that, apart from the dead body found when they were rescued, they had been forced to throw overboard the bodies of eleven others - nine adult males and two minors - during their treacherous six or seven-day journey from north Africa. This means that a total of thirteen immigrants died as one of the mostly seriously injured survivors, who was...

47 year old British man

, who is thought to be suffering from some kind of mental problems, has been arrested in Los Cristianos in the south of Tenerife accused of murdering his wife. The man was arrested on Saturday evening when he walked into a bar in a row of shops below where he and his wife had been living for the last eight months, and asked the bar owner if he knew where he lived. The bar owner explained that he lived in one of the apartments above, but when he saw...

Federico Trillo, was arrested at his office yesterday afternoon accused of internet fraud.

José Mariano Trillo-Figueroa, who, apart from being the lawyer employed by Jaime Giménez Arbe, the armed bank robber better known as 'The Loner, is also the brother of former PP Defence minister, Federico Trillo, was arrested at his office yesterday afternoon accused of internet fraud. According to Javier Barroso, writing in today's El Pais, Trillo, who was released from custody by police this morning, is accused of trying to sell a four metre high...

three Guardia Civil officers based in El Ejido (Almería) were arrested

It has emerged that three Guardia Civil officers based in El Ejido (Almería) were arrested last Saturday after small quantities of drugs, seemingly ready for distribution, were found during searches of the officers' homes. The names of the three officers, as well as all other details concerning the arrests, have been withheld on the orders of the judge investigating the case. It seems that the officers were dealing cannabis resin and marihuana on...

Spanish-based Mickey "Pimpernel" Greene, a millionaire criminal wanted across Europe and north Africa.Mr Loraine-Smith said of Greene: "He was and continues to be involved in importing large amounts of drugs into this countr...

26-year-old British dealer

26-year-old British dealer was recently arrested near Marbella with false passports, eight mobile phones and a British-registered Mitsubishi 4x4. Another British gang tried to smuggle 50 kilos of cocaine in a liquid paste inside shampoo bottles using couriers throughout Britain and in Ibi...

Mickey Green, 62, known as the Pimpernel

is one of the most senior figures in Britain's underworld, and has been on the run for 20 years. Green was recently linked to a £150m cocaine-smuggling syndicate and has close connections with the Adams family, the London gangsters. Pat Adams, the eldest of the brothers, is understood to be in hiding in Andalucia, while the body of one dealer known to have links to the notorious north London family has been discovered butchered and stuffed into two...

Mickey Green wanted in Britain and Ireland as the mastermind behind a drugs racket worth £130million.

Londoner Green, 62, is said to have £10 million in cash buried in hills above Spain's Costa Del Sol. He is nicknamed The Pimpernel for dodging arrest and is currently still on the r...

Ecstasy cost €10 (£6.81) a pill, and about seven grams (a quarter of an ounce) of hashish was double that. Cocaine was €50 per gram,

Ecstasy cost €10 (£6.81) a pill, and about seven grams (a quarter of an ounce) of hashish was double that. Cocaine was €50 per gr...

Brian Wright, who is alleged to have smuggled £300m of cocaine into Britain

Soca officers confirmed last week that they have intensified their scrutiny of the links between Ibiza and the Costa del Sol, from where some of Britain's most wanted drug barons run their empires. Co-operation with Spain's Special Central Unit for Locating Fugitives (UCLF) has recently been stepped up. At least six suspected major British criminals have been arrested in the province of Malaga, including Brian Wright, who is alleged to have smuggled...

settling of accounts or grudges between gangs

Londoner William Moy, 43,who was shot five times as he sat in a busy cafe with his family. Other men just disappeared on the dusty roads that wind through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The body of at least one other drug dealer is believed to have been buried under cement in a Spanish villa's foundations.Moy's death, which characterises the so-called settling of accounts or grudges between gangs, proved the final straw for the Spanish authorities....

Shane Coates, 31, and Stephen Sugg, 26

Spanish police had noted a bloody month among the competing British drug barons who had settled on the Costa del Sol. At least four British and Irish drug dealers were murdered during July. The corpses of Shane Coates, 31, and Stephen Sugg, 26, both from Dublin, were hauled from a concrete grave near Malaga. Each had been shot twice in the mouth from point-blank range. Within days the body of the eccentric British playboy and drug runner Colin Nobes,...

Tutti Frutti Square

an incident in the late-night bar area of Tutti Frutti Square left two young men, two Guardia Civil officers and a local police officer injured. Local police advised bar owners in the area last week that they must now observe more closely their licensed opening hours, shutting down outside terraces at 2.00 and indoor bars at 3.00, with both closing times extended by an hour on Fridays, Saturdays and any night preceding a public holiday. Officers...

Thousands of people who own houses, many recently constructed along the coast, are in danger of losing their homes to bulldozers because they were bui

Thousands of people who own houses, many recently constructed along the coast, are in danger of losing their homes to bulldozers because they were built illegally. Under the controversial "Land Grab" law in Valencia, dozens of expats - after buying their homes - have been forced to pay thousands of euros in fees to local developers for improvements in local infrastructure. Swathes of coastline around Alicante and Marbella are dominated by ugly, half-built...

Judah Eleazar Binstock

Judah Eleazar Binstock, is a 78 year old British businessman and financier and is now believed to have been the person who financed trips taken by Marbella councillors the week before the motion of no confidence was placed against Julián Muñoz. He is now thought to have been hidden in the background and pulling the strings behind much of the corruption in Marbella. This information has been given to Judge Miguel Angel Torres in the declaration from...

“The difference between the two is that the British criminals use murder and threats only as a last resort. The Colombians are more ready to settle sc

In the last month, three men were murdered in their car when it was riddled with bullets by waiting assassins. And in August an Estonian man was shot in the head in a Marbella bar called The Point.Another man was found in a burnt-out car with spent rounds littering the ground. Last year in The Point, William Moy, 43, from London, was gunned down.Dublin gangsters Shane Coates, 31, and Stephen Sugg, 27, and British playboy drug baron Colin Nobes, 47,...

It’s very heavy duty down here – they are all fighting for turf. People are savagely tortured to death, it’s totally gruesome.

number of gangland hits over the last month.the Spanish police are struggling to cope with the new crime epidemic. “It’s very heavy duty down here – they are all fighting for turf. People are savagely tortured to death, it’s totally gruesome.“These gangs want to send a message to everyone, that if you screw with them you’ll die in an unpleasant fashion.“The Spanish police are very good but they are totally outnumbered. Every few days they round up...

Portuguese police seized three tonnes of cocaine worth EUR 150 million bound for Spain

Portuguese police seized three tonnes of cocaine worth EUR 150 million bound for Spain. From there, police believe, the drugs were headed for the Netherlands or other European countri...

this was just the cash the police could trace.

Spain's elite Organised Crime and Drugs Unit blocked EUR 1.5 million in bank accounts run by the gangs. And this was just the cash the police could tra...

Spain’s criminal future lies with gangs from Eastern Europe.

These are the Albanians, Slovenians, Bulgarians and Romanians who have already played havoc in other parts of the Europe.The gangs' main business is drugs, money-laundering, fire-arms and stolen vehicles. ‘The peculiarly Colombian way of “settling scores” means the number of drug-related murders is thought to have risen in Galicia’ Last week, a gang, mostly made up of Bulgarians, was arrested for stealing luxury Porsches, BMWs, Range Rovers and Mercedes,...

a man was shot in the face while sitting in a cafe

These are the latest in a long-line of mob killings in this part of the Costa del Sol.Two died after a hairdresser's was peppered with gunfireOn 18 October this year, an Eastern European man was shot dead in Marbella.In May, a policeman and a known French criminal were injured in a shooting in the same city while the officer was involved in trying to track down members of a gang. So as more and more Britons, Germans and other foreigners look for...

A seven-year-old boy, shot dead by masked killers in Marbella, was the latest victim of organised crime in the Costa del Sol.

A seven-year-old boy, shot dead by masked killers in Marbella, was the latest victim of organised crime in the Costa del Sol.Unwelcome visitorsA seven-year-old boy, shot dead by masked killers in Marbella, was the latest victim of organised crime in the Costa del Sol. Graham Keeley examines how criminal gangs are changing in one of Spain's most popular regions.Marbella is one of the Costa del Sol's most upmarket resortsCaught in the cross-fire, as...