Blind eye to the use of drugs in some bars in Ronda

A Guardis Civil Officer in Ronda , named as Rosendo S. has been ordered to prison without bail in connection with police corruption in the town.The Insrtuction Judge 3 In Ronda ordered him to prison and the officer will now been transfered to the Sevilla II prison.The Chargers against the officer include trafficking in documents such as passports, and of turning a blind eye to the use of drugs in some bars in Ronda in exchange for favours...

40,000 € to two National Police Officers

40,000 € to two National Police OfficersIt came to light in a police report on Tuesday and says that two National police officers received payments from Roca.Reports say that Roca made six payments between May 2004 and December 2005 – a total of 31,000 € to Bernadino R.M and one payment of 7,500 € in January 2005 to his colleague, José Miguel A.H. Juan Antonio...

Hashish trafficking

Hashish trafficking: The EU estimates that, at £2bn a year, hashish is unofficially both Morocco's main foreign-currency source and a major contributor to its gross domestic product. Drug trafficking from Morocco (estimated at $12.5 billion) has been identified as the major source of funding for three major terrorist incidents: the aborted attack on a US Navy...

Prince of Marbella Atalaya del Río Verde,With enough money, you can buy all the respect you need

Spanish newspaper El Mundo reports that the cabinet could make the final decision on the extradition of the Syrian alleged arms dealer before the New Year.The police in Spain believe that the extradition of the Syrian millionaire alleged arms dealer, Monzer Al Kassar, to the United States would mean an increased risk and danger for Spain and for the Spanish...

New DigiTax comes into force early in the New Year

Digitax is to be imposed to protect intellectual property rights and compensate for work copied for private use.Under the tax, which has taken over a year to thrash out and could come into force early in the New Year, external hard drives will see an extra 12 euros added to their price with MP3/MP4 players, mobile phones and CD and DVD recorders having 3.15,...

Costa Connection

The first large property investors on the Costa - the sun-and-sangria bolt-hole where British criminals used to live openly without fear of extradition - he owned a villa called El Limonar at Benalmadena, two flats on the Marbella golden mile and a small townhouse at Mijas. £6 million, the Security Express robbery was the biggest cash haul in British history...

Fernando del Valle honoured

The Chilean-born lawyer, Fernando del Valle, who is considered by police to be the mastermind behind the ‘Ballena Blanca’ scam, has been honoured by his colleagues in the Málaga College of Lawyers. Málaga lawyers presented him with a medal and diploma to mark his 25-years of service to the professionDel Valle was released from jail on September 26 after posting...

Costa del Sol racecourse

Throughout the year racing fans can enjoy the weekly horse races at Mijas Costa. From October to May on Sunday mornings from 10.30h. From June to September in the cooler evening temperatures on Saturday from 23.00h. Racing lasts around three hours.The racecourse attracts punters and fans from all along the coast and is hugely popular with locals and tourists...

Billboards without authorisation

300 advertising billboards without authorisation in the municipality of Marbella, the majority of them on privately owned land and around a hundred on public land. In the case of the former, explained the councillor, the details of the installers must be handed in at the Town Hall so that authorisation can be granted if applicable. In the case of billboards...

Homejacking Christmas Threat to Costa Security

The act of committing a homejacking is escalating much like carjacking. The reason for the increase seems to follow a similar pattern. Much like automobiles, the traditional commercial targets for robbers like convenience stores and fast-food restaurants have hardened themselves against criminal attack and have reduced available cash. Technology has allowed...

Julián Muñoz

ex-mayor of Marbella, Julián Muñoz will be released from jail later today after posting bail of €50,000 euros corresponding to charges outside the 'Malaya' investigation into property development related corruption, referring, instead, to a money-laundering investigation as a result of which, Muñoz's current girlfriend, flamenco star, Isabel Pantoja, and former...

Sniper Films Morrocan Police Corruption

The Sniper chose the anonymity of the Internet to expose his evidence for fear of reprisals by local authorities.The independent Moroccan Human Rights Association (AMDH) criticised police for hunting him, saying that an unspecified number of youths from Sniper's home village, Tarjist, were arrested by police seeking his identity and whereabouts.To his surprise, the video has drawn tens of thousands of viewers around the world and made him...

The entire development is “illegal, but built with the consent of the authorities.”

Man absolved after adding extension and pool to illegal home on proposed World Heritage siteJUDGES in Córdoba have acquitted the owner of one of the 240 illegal homes on the protected Medina Azahara site for extending the property even though it faces demolition.The defendant, who built a swimming pool and an extra room at his house at the Las Pitas development, was facing two years imprisonment as well as a 3,240 euro fine.Even though...

Moroccan mafia

Moroccan mafia dedicate themselves to the task of introducing illegal immigrants of all nationalities into the European Union. These immigrants traverse the Straits of Gibraltar in fishing boats from the south of Spain or in small wooden boats whose disadvantage is that they are often lost in the stormy waters of the Straits, but which have the advantage that...

Costa del Sol arms trafficking

International arms trafficking groups are the oldest international criminal groups in Spain. They are principally Arabs, who have a long history in the Costa del Sol region, from which they manage their business throughout the world. In their wake many other crime organisation have arrived, mainly looking for secure territories for money laundering. Colombian...

2,000 homes could face demolition in the resort.

It is apparent this is no tourist promotional video for the Levante resort, but a stinging indictment of a construction policy that has seen 100,000 new homes built in the town in recent years – many of which stand empty.However, under the government’s draft of intent to rid the coast of homes built illegally after the Coast Law of 1988, around 2,000 homes could face demolition in the resort.More than 6,000 viewers have seen this video...

The Bank of Spain has voiced concerns

The Bank of Spain has voiced concerns over the high levels of debt in the housing and construction sector. “It’s a cause for concern that requires the vigilance of management, experts and institutions,” says the bank’s director of research José Luis Malo de Molina.According to Malo de Molina the housing and construction sector has the highest level of debt in...

Marbella appear to have started fining buyers for under-declaring

the property market in Marbella has been in the doldrums for a number of years. As a result market prices are back where they were 3 or more years ago, even if official figures suggest that prices have been steadily rising, albeit at a lower rate than before. Official figures are notoriously unreliable, and everyone knows that they overstate prices. The scandal is that tax officials in Marbella appear to have started fining buyers for under-declaring...

The British Consul in Malaga, Bruce McIntyre

The British Consul in Malaga, Bruce McIntyre, recently revealed his office now spends much of its time trying to help old and lonely expatriots who can no longer cope. “Sometimes people have made bad property investments or have not budgeted their pensions and are living in extreme poverty.” With the University of Barcelona warning that the price of the average home in Spain is set to fall 20% between 2007 and 2009, it seems more and more...

cocaine addiction has surpassed the number of heroin addicts in Granada

During this year, the number of people being treated for cocaine addiction has surpassed the number of heroin addicts in Granada for the first time. During 2006, 2,000 people passed through the treatment centres of the CPD, 20 per cent of whom were addicted to cocaine and 26 per cent to heroin. So far this year, 24 per cent have been treated by the centre for cocaine addiction and 19.8 per cent have been treated for heroin addiction. The...

shattered, the dreams of many Britons have been left in ruins

shattered, the dreams of many Britons have been left in ruins after they were forced to wait four years for their promised home in the sun.Some also fear they have lost their 23,000-euro deposits placed on property in the Zoco complex in the hamlet of El Golco in la Alpujarra.Agents Palmera Properties had initially insisted the two-bedroom apartments in phases...

Princes William and Harry Finca La Garganta, near the village of Conquista

Princes William and Harry have become occasional visitors at Finca La Garganta, near the village of Conquista, on the border with Castilla La Mancha.Under the guise of hunting – the estate is literally teeming with wildlife including wild boar, stag and partridge – the young princes have whisked girlfriends, including Kate Middleton, to the estate that the Duke...

housing starts since August are down 40 percent

Spanish property companies are coming to terms with the end of a massive boom, with housing starts well down on last year as sales fall and credit tightens.Pedro Pérez, the secretary general of the so-called G-14 lobby, which groups together the 13 biggest real-estate companies in Spain, told reporters yesterday that housing starts since August are down 40 percent compared with the same period a year earlier.On top of falling sales, the...

world's longest cable car line in the Sierra Nevada

Environmental authorities on Wednesday quashed plans to build the world's longest cable car line in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, arguing the project would have a devastating impact on fragile local ecosystems. The ruling by the Andalusian environment department was applauded by conservationists who had campaigned to block the construction of the 19-kilometre line that was to have linked the city of Granada with Sierra Nevada. The...

Mr Roca's rise to riches began in 1991

Once an unemployed builder, Mr Roca allegedly gave the former mayor Marisol Yague [euro]1.3m ([pound]800,000) in bribes, slipped to her in plain envelopes, funding a facelift and home improvements costing [euro]950,000. The deputy mayor, Isabel Marcos, had [euro]360,000 in cash at her home, while Mr Roca accumulated an art collection worth [euro]30m, including...

Marbella town hall approved a thousand building licences

Marbella town hall approved a thousand building licences in recent years and that, out of 80,000 homes in the resort, only 50,000 have been declared properly legal.Town hall councillors were accused of failing to review the majority of licences given since 1998 and continuing to give "illegal licences". Most of these were awarded in the 1990s when Marbella was run by the populist mayor and property developer Jesús Gil, who was later imprisoned...

Charlie Wilson,s alleged killer resurfaces AKA Willy Douglas, Terence Tompkins, William Baird McDonald,Willy Grant,(Update)

Great Train Robber, Charlie Wilson, 57,was shot dead along with his dog by a man on a motorbike, on the doorstep of his Villa in Marbella in 1990. , initiating a gangland feud.Wilson’s wife, Pat, witnessed the murder and said Grant was the gunmanThe gunman was never caught, but the getaway car driver, Danny `Scarface’ Roff, was himself the target of a fatal...

Prince of Marbella Kassar's home is in the upscale town of Marbella

Kassar's home is in the upscale town of Marbella, on Spain's southern Mediterranean coast. His home was cordoned off by police, who were searching for evidence there.Kassar, who has Spanish residency status, was taken to the National Court in central Madrid, which handles cases of terrorism. After a closed-door hearing, a judge ordered him to be held in jail,...

Wi-fi is on the way to Marbella

Wi-fi is on the way to Marbella. The Town Hall has said that they are to set up wireless internet access in the public areas across the municipality in the next two mont...

Richard Neil

has become the 6th fatality to die as a consequence of the settling of scores in Málaga province this year. The first of them was last August at The Point bar, when a 38 year old Estonian was shot dead with a single shot to the head.Two weeks later the burnt out body of a man was found in a car in Estepona. He had also been shot. And on September 11th three Colombians were killed in the Torreblanca del Sol Urbanisation in Fuengirola, in...

Aki Johannes Kujala

Aki Johannes Kujala, suspect in involvement in the White Whale case, when he declared his annual income at only 50,000 euros, while living a life of luxury and expensive style. The 41-year-old Finn, a resident on the Costa del Sol, had already been investigated by the police for money-laundering and financial crimes in his own country on various occasions,...

Marbella Club

The hotel's address Marbella Club, located in this town Malaga, yesterday sent a message of reassurance to the workers of the establishment, dissociate themselves from the records in connection with the transaction Hidalgo against money laundering, and rejecting any involvement with the case. Thus, according to union sources indicated, in a meeting with the...

Mauritius Pardo, Joaquín Crespo and Amelia Berjillos

names of the detainees include three notaries in exercise: Mauritius Pardo, Joaquín Crespo and Amelia Berjillos. The last two names already appeared related to the transaction White Whale, also against money laundering, as informed sources in the investigation. However, the investigations are still under way into the hands of the magistrate number two in Marbella, As part of the investigation, were carried out searches in Marbella, including...

Cruz Conde

Nineteen of the twenty-one arrested in the operation known as "Hidalgo" against money laundering centered in Marbella still in police custody while awaiting that are brought to justice. Police sources Efe reported today that although initially twenty-one persons were arrested, two were released, and the rest remain in the Malaga Provincial Police Station. ...

worldwide money laundering

National Police officers on the Costa del Sol have arrested a lawyer and an Israeli administrator in connection to the "White Whale" money laundering investigation. Both men have been linked to the DV Law Firm managed by Fernando del Valle in Marbella which is alleged to have been the hub of a worldwide money laundering operation believed to have handled sums of up to €250 million on behalf of Eastern European mafia grou...

Harvey Jeffrey

A British man, Harvey Jeffrey L, arrested last Saturday as part of the "White Whale" money laundering investigation, has been jailed by judge Miguel Angel Torres after an appearance this afternoon at Marbella municipal court. His wife, who was also arrested at the weekend, was allowed to go and no charges were brought against her. Both are suspected of swindling fellow Brits out of hundreds of thousands of euros since setting up a business...

Fernando del Valle

sum of 600,000 euros has been demanded in return for the temporary freedom of Fernando del Valle in the Marbella money-laundering case which occurred last March. The family of the Chilean-born lawyer, accused of being the mastermind behind the 250 million euro fraud, are now attempting to secure the bond which will lead to his release from the prison in Albolote,...

two performers had live sex on a stage in front of dignitaries

A comic fair in Spain erupted into scandal after two performers had live sex on a stage in front of dignitaries, according to reports. Local authorities in the southern Spanish town of Granada threatened to withdraw funding from the International Comic Fair, reports the Guardian and El Pais newspapers. Organisers "decided to enliven an awards ceremony" for comic books last Friday, reports the Guardian, by paying two actors to have sex on...