Italian Mafia in Spain

Italian Mafia in Spain. Twelve capos have been arrested in the past three months, forcing police to admit that the Camorra and N’drangheta from Calabria and the Sicilian Mafia are now a very real presence on the Iberian peninsula.Many come to Spain attracted by the opportunity to...

more than a million flats for sale currently in Spain, forecast is they will take three years to sell at a 30% discount

Price of housing in Spain has to fall a further 30% for the market to adjust as needed, according to a study by the Confederation of Spanish Savings Banks, FUNCAS. The report defends the lack of credit coming from the banks, describing the closing of the tap as ‘absolutely rational’.The study showed that there are more than a million flats for sale currently across the country, and forecast they will take three years to sell.The study was presented...

Antonio Caiazzo, 50, and Francesco Simeoli, 40, arrested in Spain

Antonio Caiazzo, 50, and Francesco Simeoli, 40, are believed to be heads of a clan in the Naples-area mafia, the Camorra, Naples police said in a statement.Caiazzo has been on the run since March 2007 after being sentenced to 12 years in prison by a Naples court.Simeoli, believed...

Richard Keogh was gunned down by a hitman who lured him on to the street with a phone call.

Richard Keogh was gunned down by a hitman who lured him on to the street with a phone call.As the 30-year-old man left his bar rendezvous with a South American pal, a car stopped and a hitman emerged. He fired at Keogh, hitting him once in front of his girlfriend, before chasing...

Arrests in the Body in the suitcase

25 year old man and a 40 year old woman have been arrested in connection with the death of a man whose body was found last Tuesday inside a suitcase which had been abandoned on waste ground in Benimaclet in Valencia.It seems the two arrested on Friday were romantically involved, and were arrested after the daughter of the woman alerted police to the fact that her boyfriend was missing. His description matched that of the man found in the suitcase....

Juan Antonio Roca, the ex Municipal Real Estate assessor, has been sentenced

Juan Antonio Roca, the ex Municipal Real Estate assessor, has been sentenced in the fourth section of the Penal Hall of the National Court in Spain to six years ten months in prison. Roca was sentenced to five years in prison for the misuse of public funds, and an additional 22 months for document falsification.He and two others charged in the Saqueo case also have to pay back 23 million to Marbella Town Hall.José Luis Sierra, the ex judicial advisor...

Female Striptease performance at Spanish jail angers guards

A prison guards' union says a female stripper performed at a Spanish jail and authorities did nothing to stop it.The union says the woman took her clothes off before male inmates Jan. 2 and committed several lewd acts at the prison in Picassent in the eastern Valencia region.An official with the Spanish Penitentiary System called it an inappropriate "musical performance" and said an investigation was trying to find out who authorized it.The union...

Spain faced a "very high risk" of suffering another Islamist attack

Six people of Pakistani origin were arrested on suspicion of " fraud" Tuesday in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.Earlier in the day, a source close to the inquiry had said police detained 10 suspected Islamic extremists in raids in Barcelona, Madrid and the Canary Islands in an operation ordered by top antiterrorist judge Baltazar Garzon.Rubalcaba gave no further details as to possible charges, but a...

Banco Santander SA sold Bernard Madoff investments Branch managers channeled customers with money from property sales or inheritances

Banco Santander SA sold Bernard Madoff investments Branch managers channeled customers with money from property sales or inheritances to private banking salespeople, lawyers for the investors said. A retired school teacher put 300,000 euros ($388,000), half her savings, in a structured product linked to Madoff, said Jordi Ruiz de Villa, an attorney at the Barcelona law firm Jausas. The vendor invested 325,000 euros of lottery winnings in a similar...

alleged Moroccan drug trafficker, who has been arrested in Melilla, has confessed to having carried out several assassinations,

alleged Moroccan drug trafficker, who has been arrested in Melilla, has confessed to having carried out several assassinations, and of hiding the bodies in a well in Murcia. He claimed that another Moroccan and a Spaniard of gypsy origin took part in the killings.Firemen, the Guardia Civil and some soldiers spent Wednesday searching for the bodies and reports now indicate that at least two have now been found. One of the bodies is thought to have...

Judges in Madrid have voted by a wide majority in support of strike action

Judges in Madrid have voted by a wide majority in support of strike action, voting 103 votes to 19 to take the strike action which is to start on February 18. The decision in Madrid follows similar decisions to take action in Murcia, Extremadura, Zamora, Málaga and Sevilla on the same day.The judges say they are short-staffed and need more resources so as to carry out their jobs. Despite some concessions from the Ministry, the protests for now remain...

Spanish Civil Guards arrested six Pakistani nationals Tuesday

Spanish Civil Guards arrested six Pakistani nationals Tuesday, accused of sales tax fraud, a Civil Guard spokesman in Madrid told CNN.The spokesman declined to confirm Spanish media reports that the suspects may have been involved in financing Islamic extremist activities.But the arrests occurred across Spain in an operation directed by Spain's anti-terrorism National Court.The suspects were detained in Barcelona, the southeast region of Valencia,...

Sub-Saharan man has been killed in a street fight

Sub-Saharan man has been killed in a street fight in El Ejido, Almería. The man from Mali is said to have died at 0930 on Tuesday morning after being hit with a stick by a countryman, who has now been arrested.National Police are investigating the reasons for the disturban...

Case to answer against the mayor of Alhaurin el Grande and his wife .

It seems that more than 150,000 euros entered their bank account from unknown sources and plots of land were acquired without any payment being made . The prosecutor is talking about bribery , money laundering and the planning of crimes .It appears that 23 other people are involved in what has become known as the ” Troya ” corruption case .It all started in 2007 when an investigation discovered that money was exchanging hands with the town hall in...

Discount grocer Kwik Save, has been resurrected on the Costa del Sol.

Discount grocer Kwik Save, has been resurrected on the Costa del Sol.Peter O'Toole, a former director at Irish grocer Musgrave, bought the rights to the name from the administrator and opened a 5,000 sq ft store in Torremuelle late last year.O'Toole said initial reactions to the opening have been positive among the large British ex-pat community. "Most people have been really enthusiastic because there are no real discounters here," he said.He added...

Mayor of La Linea, Juan Carlos Juárez, has been suspended from his post for six months by the Penal Court 2 in Algeciras

Mayor of La Linea, Juan Carlos Juárez, has been suspended from his post for six months by the Penal Court 2 in Algeciras on a charge of obstructing justice.The ex GIL party member also has to pay 720 € in the so-called Caso Palex.It dates back to 2001 when the La Linea Town Hall was ordered by the Andalucian High Court to pay 1.84 million € to the Palez company which had the job between 1994 and 1998 of supplying hospital dialysis services, but the...

Nigerians continue to send thousands of false lottery letters from Andalucía and the Mediterranean Coast.

Nigerians continue to send thousands of false lottery letters from Andalucía and the Mediterranean Coast.The Nilo case led to the arrest of 310 people and the searching of 180 different premises, when the Málaga group was sending between 15,000 and 20,000 letters a day. But even now the police say that they are arresting a new group every two or three weeks.The United States Department of Justice estimates that there have been 2.8 million victims...

Spanish ADSL is the slowest and most expensive in Europe

The Spanish Association of Internet Users has complained about the slowing growth rate of ADSL and cable connections in the country, and called for price reductions. They claim the Spanish ADSL is the slowest and most expensive in Europe.Last November there were 86,404 new ADSL connections, down 40% year on year.The Association says that it wants to see universal access to the web, sustained by public money. In the meantime they are calling for a...

Dubai the new Costa del Crime

Crime bosses are fleeing to the United Arab Emirates state because there is no extradition treaty with the UK. Dubai has become a paradise for British fugitives on the run.They are also using the property market there as an easy way to launder their millions. Traditionally criminals fled to Spain's Costa del Sol, but because of the success in extraditing gangsters such as road rage killer Kenny Noye it is no longer considered safe.Among those believed...

Spanish Bank guarantees that are in order are not being honoured as the Spanish property market goes into freefall.

Bank guarantees, or Aval Bancario, from developers have been compulsory by law on off-plan purchases in Spain for the past 40 years. They mean that if a developer fails to build on time, or goes into administration and does not build at all, buyers should get most or all of their money returned. Until recently they worked well. As the holiday home market boomed, few developers went bust and buyers would accept minor delays. If a buyer did claim a...

Uruguayan Police capture international drug gang that moved cocaine to Spain

Uruguayan police disrupted an international cocaine moved to Spain, with the arrest of 14 people, including two Spanish and one Venezuelan, and the seizure of 124 kilos of that drug and 250,000 euros ( 322,500 U.S. dollars), police sources confirmed tod...

The Coast of the Death 4 tons of Cocaine siezed in Galicia

National Police have siezed 122 cocaine bundles, about 4,000 kilos, that had been disembarked on the beach at Morte, in the municipality Coruna . A person, has been arrested on the beach. The Coast of the Death four tons of cocaine disembarked on a the beach.Spanish authorities seized some four tonnes of cocaine in northwestern Spain on Monday and detained one person as part of their operation, police and customs agents said, cited by AFP.The authorities...

New Zealander died in hospital alleged that a Briton was the instigator of the attack.

New Zealander died in hospital in Cádiz on Christmas Eve after being involved in a brawl in La Línea on December 19. It is alleged that the victim and a Briton were involved in a row which first broke out in a pub in Gibraltar and then for reasons unknown the pair decided to go to La Línea where the deceased man lived. Eyewitnesses say that the second encounter took place in La Atunara after a further row between the two. The injured man received...

British families started legal proceedings against builders Peinsa after the company reported that La Tercia Real golf resort would not be built

British families have started legal proceedings against builders Peinsa after the company reported that La Tercia Real (LTR) golf resort would not be built. The Hearns and Hunter paid 80,000 each to the builder two years ago for off-plan properties at the complex near Sucina, Murcia. They sold their homes in the UK to finance the deposit of their dream homes and moved into rented accommodation to wait for them to be built. Now they have no property...

Toll charge on the Costa del Sol motorway has been increased by between 3.5 and five per cent

Toll charge on the Costa del Sol motorway has been increased by between 3.5 and five per cent on the Malaga-Estepona stretch following the approval by the Development Ministry. This means that drivers of cars or motorbike riders will now have to pay 3.75 euros between Malaga and Marbella as opposed to the 3.60 euros it cost in 2008, which is a 4.1 per cent increase. This is the standard tariff between October and May, except during Holy Week.Throughout...

Juan Antonio Roca charges of embezzlement, money laundering and bribery. That trial will begin sometime in 2009.

The Roca years will have a long-term effect on the economy of Marbella, says Angeles Munoz, who was elected mayor in 2007. Even in Marbella’s waterfront Puerto Banus area, where tourists stop to have their pictures taken in front of Maseratis or megayachts, real estate prices are...

John Vasey was accused of carrying £2.5m of cannabis across the border from Spain

John Vasey today told of his shock at being sentenced to five years behind bars.The lorry driver from Rickleton Village, Washington, was due back before a French court today for an appeal hearing, more than four years after first facing drug smuggling charges. The 48-year-old had just started piecing his life back together after he was accused of carrying £2.5m of cannabis across the border from Spain.After a nightmare 14-month spell in jail after...

Sean Woodhall, 43, a convicted fraudster known as “Slippery Sean”, that he staged the mysterious plane crash.

Claims are being made that a group of businessmen who went missing in a mysterious plane crash staged their deaths and fled with 

millions of pounds.The four debt-ridden Britons were officially on board a small Brazilian charter plane that crashed along the country’s coastline...

Shipwrecked Zodiac dinghy was spotted roughly 22 miles off Cape Vilano last Wednesday by a passing Portuguese ship

Three Spanish men were rescued by the crew of the 'Pesca I' coast guard helipcopter yesterday lunchtime after their shipwrecked Zodiac dinghy was spotted roughly 22 miles off Cape Vilano last Wednesday by a passing Portuguese ship. All three are reported to be well despite suffering from minor injuries and mild hypothermia. They were taken to Peinador airport in Vigo, from where they were transferred to Meixueiro Hospital Hospital to receive medical...

British national who lived in Orihuela found dead in an irrigation canal

It has been confirmed that the 18-year-old youth found dead in an irrigation canal in San Miguel de Salinas (Alicante) early yesterday morning was a British national who lived in Orihuela. His body was found on the service road that leads to the Villamartín residential estate at 7.45am, around three quarters of an hour after a passer-by had found his damaged moped and reported a possible accident to the emergency services. It appears that the lad...

Missing Amy Fitzpatrick father in Ireland

Could you please put information on your website about Missing Amy Fitzpatrick father in Ireland He has now hired a private detective to help in the search for Amy Anyone with information can contact Private Investigator Liam A Brady.www.liamabrady.ie...

peaceful protest march in Almeria

peaceful protest march in AlmeriaCity this Friday, January 9th 2009 - a year exactly after Len and Helen Prior's housewas demolished by the Junta de Andalucía. It's being organised by AULAN, AUAN (both anti-property abuse associations in Almeria), Ciudadanos Europeos and others. This is our first big opportunity to show that the arbitrary treatment towards property owners must be stopp...