Burglars knock out their victims with sleeping gas

The Guardia Civil are investigating the burglaries of six homes in the Colinas de Procusan urbanisation at La Cala del Moral, near Rincón de la Victoria in Málaga.

The same gang attacked all the homes, using sleeping gas to put out the occupants. Most people were sleeping with the windows open and the burglars threw gas canisters in through the windows to knock out their victims.

When they woke, complete in most cases with a sore throat, and even vomiting, they found that wallets, and jewellery and other small items of value had gone. Curiously the thieves did not take any of the vehicles in the urbanisation, despite the keys being available to them.

Residents say they are worried, especially for their children.

 

Glenn Close to be presented with this year's Premio Donostia

Glenn Close, the star of ‘Dangerous Liasons’ and TV series, ‘Damages’, is to be presented with the Premio Donostia, the special award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

The award is in recognition of her film career, and she will be in San Sebastián to collect the gong on September 18. The festival runs between the 16th and 24th of September.

Glenn Close joins a list of previous winners which includes Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Woody Allen, Robert de Niro, Francis Ford Coppola, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis and Gregory Peck, among others.

Guardia Civil arrest two British fire raisers in Torrevieja

Guardia Civil has arrested two British men, named as 40 year old C.J.M., and 38 year old M.A.F. in connection with some 15 fires in commercial establishments in Torrevieja where the shop owners also allegedly suffered threats from the Brits.

The Guardia Civil think the British men carried out the threats, cut power supplies, and set the fires in the shops or on their terraces in revenge following arguments with the business owners in episodes which started in July 2009.

Some of the shop owners were so intimidated by the Britons that they declined to give details to the Guardia.

The Britons are alleged between them to have set 15 fires which caused damage, and face charges of causing criminal damage and making threats.

The Guardia Civil has said that the two Britons also set fire to the rubbish containers outside their homes, as they were not happy about their location. They also set a fire on waste land, and on two occasions set the home of one of them on fire, although the damage in these events was generally not serious.

 

Nine Britons have been arrested on Ibiza with 1,700 doses of ecstasy and other drugs.

The Guardia Civil believe the group supplied the ecstasy which is believed to have been responsible for the fatal heart attack suffered by Jodie Nieman, a 20 year old British tourist, on July 13.

Mephedrone is a stimulant which has an increased heart rate among its side effects, and is sometimes sold as ecstasy.

The breakup of the British drug traffickers comes thanks to the work of the rural security section of the Guardia Civil on Ibiza, who identified an individual who was nervous when questioned last August 9. This 24 year old was carrying 200 ecstasy pills, 51 doses of mephedrone and 78 grams of the drug in a bag, 10 grams of ketamine, as well as precision scales.

The EDOA anti organised crime and anti-drug group then took charge of the case leading to the location of the nine Britons, aged between 20 and 30, who lived in apartments in Sant Antoni de Portmany.

Their homes were searched last Wednesday afternoon when the arrests were also made. They will appear shortly in Instruction Court 2 in Ibiza.

Court orders demolition of illegally built property in Torrox

The EFE news agency has seen the order which states that the property has to be demolished ‘in a forced way’, given that the owner, Antonio Urdiales, who has been found guilty of a crime against planning laws, has not attended to the demand to voluntarily demolish the property.

The owner has started legal proceedings in an attempt to be granted a pardon, and has also launched a petition. His spokesman, Modesto Jiménez, said that signatures have been collected since last week and they now have more than 400, ‘although there will be many more as we have put sheets in all the businesses and shops in Torrox’.

The petition states that the demolition of the property, in the Manzano Alto area, will not solve the problem of the irregular properties which exist in the Axarquía region.

‘In all the villages in the district, 90% of the existing buildings in the campo are in the same circumstances as our neighbour, and demolishing one house is not going to solve the problem’.

Urdiales was found guilty in November 2009, by Penal Court 6, which considered it proved that from 2004 he used a municipal licence for the construction of a 24 m2 agricultural caseta to build a detached villa.

The building is 100 square metres and a swimming pool and cement boundary wall have also been constructed.

 

Dolce & Gabbana cocaine in Galicia

Cocaine branded with the Dolce & Gabbana name has been seized in a Guardia Civil operation in Galicia which has resulted in ten arrests. Six of those arrested in the ‘Medusa’ operation are already being held in prison, while the rest have been granted bail with charges outstanding.

The drug runners broken up by the UCO unit of the Guardia Civil used a 30 ton hydraulic press to brand their product according to quality and also used the Camel and XX brands.

A laboratory in Cambados received pure cocaine from Colombia, and then cut the drug and repackaged it.

Some ten kilos of the drug recovered by the police remains uncut and pure. The Guardia describe the lab as ‘one of the best for the manipulation of cocaine found in the Galicia region’.