Cargoes of cannabis over the Strait from Ceuta to the Costa del Sol

Details have been released of a National Police operation against a drug smuggling gang which operated between Ceuta and the Costa del Sol, and which brought large amounts of cannabis into Spain illegally. Central government offices in Ceuta said eleven arrests have taken place in Marbella, Estepona and Ceuta, and that six of them were from the Autonomous City, two from Málaga province, and the remaining three were Moroccan.It has been a joint investigation on both sides of the Strait, which brought information that the gang planned to make a drugs run to Estepona on the 5th of this month. The haul amounted to more one and a half tons of cannabis, and would, according to information from EFE, have brought the smugglers almost 2.5 million €.Also confiscated in the operation were the Zodiac boat the smugglers used for the trip across the Strait of Gibraltar, a stolen van and two other vehicles, satellite telephones, and GPS navigation equipment.

"Helldorado" - paradise that has mutated into a nightmare.

"for sale" signs are the most stark warning yet that the Spanish property bubble has finally burst. Here in Southern Spain, bitter expats talk about "Helldorado" - paradise that has mutated into a nightmare. Tumbling property prices, a glut of new properties still flooding onto the market and rising Spanish interest rates are taking their toll. Added to this, illegal building practices mean that 100,000 coastal homes are now under threat of demolition. And to make matters even worse, the pound has fallen almost 12 per cent against the euro over the last year, leaving many British residents even further out of pocket.

Nerja teacher has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing an 11 year old

32 year old Nerja teacher, named with the initials A.P. and who works at the Nueva Nerja Primary School, has been arrested at his home in Torrox, on charges of sexually abusing an 11 year old member of his family.
The married father of two was arrested in Saturday evening charged with continued abuse of the 11 year old girl. He is well known in Nerja and also works as a Civil Protection volunteer.

Santiago del Valle disposed of the infant girl's body in a sewer around 300 metres from his apartment in Huelva

Santiago del Valle, a convicted paedophile arrested in March for the murder of five-year-old Mari Luz Cortés, has told a judge that he disposed of the infant girl's body in a sewer around 300 metres from his apartment in Huelva.
Mari Luz's body was found in an estuary outside the city 54 days after her disappearance on 13 January.In his court testimony from 27 March, which was made public this week, Del Valle admitted to enticing Mari Luz into the entrance hall to his apartment block with a toy after seeing her alone on the street. He claims she fell as she climbed the stairs and hit her head."I didn't touch her," Del Valle, who was previously convicted for abusing his own daughter and another young girl, told the judge. He said he "became scared," stuffed Mari Luz into a shopping handcart and walked around 300 metres to a sewer cap. He dropped her inside.
"I didn't know if she was alive or dead," he said.The autopsy revealed that Mari Luz died from asphyxia. Del Valle's testimony differs substantially from that of his sister, who is also a suspect in the girl's murder. Rosa del Valle said that on the day of Mari Luz's disappearance, she had driven her brother to a shopping mall near marshland on the outskirts of the city. She said he took the handcart with him - something she thought odd given that 13 January was a Sunday.

Spanish police have seized more than 700 priceless artifacts

Spanish police have seized more than 700 priceless artifacts plundered from archaeological sites in South America and smuggled to Europe, they said on Tuesday.
The pieces, predating the Spanish conquest, included dozens of valuable golden objects, masks, vessels, pendants and maces, stolen from Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.
An Interior Ministry statement said police had arrested a Spanish man and his Colombian wife who had been trafficking in stolen artifacts for years, selling them in auction houses in Europe, mainly in France.
The couple had planned to stage an exhibition and auction this month in France, but were arrested after returning from Colombia.The seized artifacts will be sent for analysis to the Madrid Archaeological Museum and authorities expected them to be claimed by their countries of origin.

Julián Muñoz, are refusing to accept the prosecutor’s demand that all those charged with perversion of the course of justice

The idea of a forming a plea bargain pact with the prosecutor has, according to El País, split the ex-GIL party councillors in Marbella who face corruption and other real-estate related charges.Defence lawyers are trying to get the prosecutor’s offer of short jail terms replaced by mere financial penalities.
The prosecutor wants a deal to speed up the some 70 cases which are linked to the town, most for the granting of building licences for illegal constructions.
However some of the ex Councillor defendants, including Tomás Reñones and Alberto García Muñoz, the nephew of the ex Mayor, Julián Muñoz, are refusing to accept the prosecutor’s demand that all those charged with perversion of the course of justice linked to real estate spend between one and three years in prison, according to each case. They want only to face fines. The newspaper reports that those who have already been inside, such as Julián Muñoz and Marisa Alcalá, are more disposed to accept the prosecutor’s offer.
The next stage is a meeting tomorrow (Thursday) between the prosecutors’ office and the lawyers of the ex-councillors to see what progress can be made.

Santiago del Valle lured Mari Luz Cortés with a teddy bear

El País newspaper today prints what it says is the statement made by Santiago del Valle in court in Huelva. He’s the man who is accused of killing the Huelva five year old Mari Luz Cortés on January 13th. The newspaper says that his version of events is denied by the police and other statements, but he claims that he threw down a small teddy bear through a window at the door to his home, and called her. The five year old picked it up and entered into the hall of his building. ‘This is what happens to me with small girls’, he said. ‘I can’t help it’. He then called her upstairs and says she was scared and fell down the stairs knocking her head and ending up unconscious. Del Valle told the court that there was no blood and he panicked. He got a supermarket trolley and put her inside, covering her head with a black jacket.He said he only had to travel 300metres when he found a drain which he opened and placed the child inside. He claims he did not know whether she was alive or dead, but he heard a bang as he dropped her inside the drain. ‘I don’t understand how she appeared in the river’, he said ‘I did not put her there’.
He then says he told his wife, who did not believe him, and the couple left for Sevilla the next day after they were attacked by some local gypsies and feared more attacks. He said his sister Rosa was not involved.Meanwhile members of Santiago del Valle’s family have now left the district after a series of attacks against them and their property. ‘We’ve done nothing and have nothing to do with my brother’, complained one before they left.

Convicted paedophile Santiago del Valle has committed other crimes.

Mari Luz Cortes grandfather Juan Cortes said: "The authorities should investigate him fully because that way they may be able to discover what happened to Madeleine. We are sure he is hiding other secrets from the police." Relatives of five-year-old Mari Luz Cortes claim convicted paedophile Santiago del Valle has committed other crimes.
Mari Luz was found dead near her home in Huelva 54 days after she went missing last January. The city is 90 minutes from Praia da Luz, Portugal, where Maddie vanished a year ago. Her parents Kate, 40, and Gerry, 39, of Rothley, Leics, have already called on Portuguese police to find out where del Valle was last May. He admits dumping Mari Luz’s body and is in jail awaiting trial — but insists she died by accident. Mr Cortes added: "At least we have found our little girl and can grieve for her.

Coín’s crime wave

Coín’s Local Police made 70 arrests during the month of April, double the monthly average of 30 to 30 and the largest number in the force’s history. Just under two thirds of the arrests were made in the town itself. The rest were made in Alhaurin el Grance, Guaro, Monda and Tolox, which come under Coín’s jurisdiction. Most of the arrests involved robbery, followed by drug trafficking. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the National Police in Malaga city said firearms were taking over from knives as the weapon most used to commit crimes. He said there had been nine shootouts and more than 20 robberies at gun point since the beginning of the year.

Julian Muñoz and Marisol Yagüe would serve between six months and a year in prison for each crime they are found guilty of, without having to appear

Former GIL party councillors in Marbella who have been charged with corruption or some irregularity regarding town planning permissions in the town have been offered a deal by the Prosecutor’s Office. Under the deal, former mayors Julian Muñoz and Marisol Yagüe would serve between six months and a year in prison for each crime they are found guilty of, without having to appear in court, as well as a ten year ban on holding public office. This deal only applies to those who are charged with granting building licences in Marbella which were outside the Urban Plan, and other associated irregularities such as bribery, misuse of public funds and the illegal collection of monies, among others. If the former GIL councillors do not accept the deal they will face sentences of between six months to two years in jail prison for each charge they are found guilty of. A spokesman for the Prosecutor’s Office the measure will save a great deal of human and material resources because more than 60 outstanding cases will not have to be dealt with in court. The downside for the accused is that if they accept the deal, they will be admitting their guilt.

Mari Luz Cortés family set out on a pilgrimage around Spain

family of Mari Luz Cortés set out on a pilgrimage around Spain last week to collect signatures in a campaign to tighten the laws against pederasts. Mari Luz disappeared from her home in Huelva on January 13th when she popped out to buy sweets from a nearby kiosk. Her body appeared 55 days later in a stream and one of the family’s neighbours, Santiago del Valle, a convicted child molester, was arrested. Del Valle had been sentenced to jail two years earlier but for reasons which are currently under investigation, he was never actually put in jail. At the time of the girl’s murder he was reporting once every two weeks to a court in Sevilla. He and his wife disappeared from their home in Huelva shortly after Mari Luz disappeared. Her family had always suspected Del Valle, who is now in jail, and are now undertaking a 5,500 kilometre journey round the country to collect the signatures needed for their campaign to make sure he spends the rest of his life in prison. By the time they arrived in Malaga last week, they had collected more than 20,000 en route from Huelva via Sevilla. They will continue round the coast as far as Barcelona before heading to the northern coastal cities and then inland to Madrid, where they will present their petition to the government.

Two men have been arrested in Cadiz in connection with the rape of ten women

Two men have been arrested in Cadiz in connection with the rape of ten women, a crime which an innocent man has already served a ten year sentence for committing. The enquiry was re-opened as new evidence relating to the rapes, which took place between 1995 and 2000, came to light. The man who was originally tried and convicted for the crime was sentenced when one victim claimed to recognise his voice, despite the fact that his DNA did not match evidence gathered at the crime scenes, and the rapes still continued following his arrest! The new suspects are both 53-year old Spaniards from Cadiz, who carried out the attacks on random victims, whilst dressed in full military uniform.

Right now, Catral is infamous for its illegal houses

Over the past decade, developers built about 100,000 illegal homes in Spain, and consumer advocates say thousands of those are now threatened with demolition as regional governments try to deter clandestine construction. The crusade may discourage the foreign buyers who fueled Spain's housing boom, deepening a slump that began last year. Leo Levett-Smith and his wife, Jean, thought they did everything right when they bought their retirement home in Spain. They used a registered real estate agent, a Spanish notary and obtained their mortgage through one of then country's largest savings banks. Then in January they received a demolition order saying the house had been built without a permit. ``We really believed we had taken all the necessary precautions,'' says Levett-Smith, a 65-year-old retired traffic policeman from Cheshire, England, as he sits on the porch of the russet-colored villa in Catral, 42 kilometers (26 miles) southwest of Alicante. ``I mean, where else have you heard of this happening?'' ``The problem is very serious,'' says Rafael Pampillon, an economics professor at the Instituto Empresa in Madrid. ``When a country has a system or set of institutions that allow illegal houses to be built and corruption to exist then evidently foreign investment is going to flee.'' At least one house has already been bulldozed. In January, Len and Helen Prior lost their three-bedroom villa in Almeria. The 63-year-olds from Berkshire, England, paid 350,000 pounds ($694,155) for the house in 2003. Each of Spain's 8,111 town halls has the authority to make planning decisions and issue building permits with little oversight from the regional or national governments. As property prices soared, some local officials were drawn into schemes to profit from new home construction. The former head of urban planning in Marbella has been charged with money laundering and accepting bribes to issue building permits. When Juan Antonio Roca was arrested in March 2006, police seized 2.4 billion euros ($3.8 billion) of assets, including two hotels, sports cars and 103 horses. Roca denies any wrongdoing. ``When everyone is making money, for example the real estate agent, the town hall and the administration, everyone turns a blind eye,'' says Bernardo del Rosal, former ombudsman for the Valencia region. ``The system as a whole fails and the law is worthless when that happens.'' The local governments with the largest concentration of new housing, including Valencia, Alicante and Marbella, declined to say how many homes may be destroyed in their communities. Andres Lara, a spokesman for Spain's Housing Ministry, and officials at each of the 17 regional governments referred questions to the municipalities. Government officials won't provide figures because it puts them in an ``abysmal light,'' says Bernardo Hernandez Bataller, a Spanish lawyer and president of a European Union committee that advises on financial services and consumer protection. ``It's safe to say the demolition orders could run into thousands,'' Bataller says. Home prices almost doubled in the eight years through 2006, as buyers took advantage of a booming economy, stable employment and low borrowing costs. About 2 million foreigners own property in the country, according to Ciudadanos Europeos, which works to protect the interests of Europeans in Spain. Spanish residential property prices fell in real terms for the first in more than a decade during the first quarter, as interest rates rose and banks tightened lending because of the global credit shortage. The number of foreigners and non-residents buying homes in Spain fell 42 percent last year, according to the Housing Ministry. Their share of total transactions dipped to 9.5 percent from 12 percent. The slowdown in the housing market, which represents 9 percent of gross domestic product, is rippling through the economy. GDP will expand 1.8 percent in 2008, less than half last year's pace, and unemployment will rise for the first time in more than a decade, the International Monetary Fund says. ``The bad press and examples of corruption have done nothing to help raise the confidence of international investors,'' says Miguel Martin Rabadan, general director of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Spain. The Levett-Smith's story is a parable for how exuberance and greed drove corruption in the Spanish housing market. The couple moved to Spain seven years ago, initially settling in a village near Torrevieja on the Mediterranean coast. When the area became too crowded, they decided to move inland.
In 2005, the Levett-Smiths bought their three-bedroom house in Catral, paying 220,000 euros to Country Life Properties SL. The property is one of the 1,270 homes in the community that were built with insufficient permits issued during the 12 years that Jose Manuel Rodríguez Leal was the town's mayor. Some 160 homes in Catral have been served with demolition orders. Among the companies that built the homes was Grufade SL, a developer registered in the name of Maria Angeles Rodriguez Leal, the former mayor's sister, according to a complaint filed by the European Association for the Protection of Urban Consumers. Grufade's sales rose to 1.7 million euros in 2006 from 3,900 euros two years earlier, according to filings at Alicante's mercantile register. Rodriguez Leal resigned in January 2007, and his party was defeated in local elections the following May. A court in Alicante is investigating corruption charges against Rodriguez Leal. According to newspaper 20minutos.es there are 93 similar investigations in Spain. Leal Rodriguez denies any wrongdoing. He says the blame lies with his brother-in-law, a builder by trade.
``Permits to build sheds and shelters were authorized, but when I realized they were being used to build houses I tried to stop them,'' Leal Rodriguez says. ``But they wouldn't, and I was powerless.'' Maria Angeles Rodriguez Leal and her husband declined to comment, according to a woman who answered the phone at Grufade's offices in Catral. The Levett-Smiths tried to avoid the pitfalls of Spain's property market by hiring a Spanish notary to oversee their transaction, getting a 130,000-euro mortgage from Spanish savings bank Caja de Ahorros del Mediterraneo, and paying 300 euros for an independent survey. No one informed the couple that the building permits were illegal, the Levett-Smiths say. Antonio Bellido, Catral's new urban planning counselor, is trying to stop the bulldozers. He has proposed charging owners of illegal homes 5 euros per square meter to have their houses legalized. That could raise 15 million euros for Catral based on Bellido's estimate that the illegal houses occupy 3 million square meters of land.
``Right now, Catral is infamous for its illegal houses,'' Bellido says. If the regional government approves the plan, ``Catral will become famous for being the town in Spain that found a solution to a mighty problem.''
If the Levett-Smiths lose their home they'll have to return to the U.K. and live with their daughter. ``No one in their right mind would give us a mortgage at our age to start again,'' says Leo Levett-Smith.