Body of San Pedro de Alcántara businessman, Fernando Moreno, was found bound and gagged close to the Istán road.

Body of San Pedro de Alcántara businessman, Fernando Moreno, was found bound and gagged close to the Istán road .Nine who were close to the 76 year old Marbella businessman, Fernando Moreno Espada, have been brought in for questioning by the police as they investigate his death during an express kidnapping attempt last week. Searches have been carried out in several homes in Urbanisation La Campana, San Pedro Marbella, Torremolinos and...

largest bust of a euro counterfeiting ring ever. Euros were tracked out of Italy to Spain

Italian police conducted an early- morning dragnet across the country to round up more than 100 people in what they described as the largest bust of a euro counterfeiting ring ever. About 700 of Italy’s Carabinieri police together with Rome’s anti-counterfeiting squad carried out 96 arrests in nine regions of the country. A total of 109 arrest warrants were issued. Four laboratories for printing fake euro bills and minting phony coins were...

Banco Santander, Spain’s largest bank, has offered to pay 1.38 billion euros, or $1.8 billion, to reimburse private banking clients

Banco Santander, Spain’s largest bank, has offered to pay 1.38 billion euros, or $1.8 billion, to reimburse private banking clients who had invested with the disgraced financier Bernard L. Madoff, a settlement that could prompt other financial institutions to follow suit. The offer, which does not apply to institutional investors, was announced Tuesday as investors brought a class-action suit against the Spanish bank in Federal District...

Richard Keogh was shot seven times after leaving a meeting with a South American drug dealer

Richard Keogh was shot seven times after leaving a meeting in a bar with a South American drug dealer.Keogh’s killer stood over him discharging shots into his body and head as he lay on the pavement outside a hotel and casino complex on the Costa del Sol.The drug-dealing contact he had just met, who is believed to be from Venezuela, was interviewed by the police...

Alan Dickson lived in Malaga where he took on a job and cared for his ailing mother before coming to the attention of Spanish police.

Alan Dickson fled following his Christmas holiday release from Castle Huntly open prison at Longforgan in 2006.He lived in Malaga where he took on a job and cared for his ailing mother before coming to the attention of Spanish police.Dickson had been jailed for 10 years in March 2002 after being “shopped” by one of his drug couriers.The 38-year-old, formerly of Falkland, sent the couriers back to Scotland laden with cannabis resin-laden...

Banco Santander SA,Spanish authorities want to know what officials at Banco Santander knew about Madoff’s alleged fraud

Banco Santander SA, one of the largest banks in Spain, has been caught up in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme scandal. And now, Spanish authorities want to know what officials at Banco Santander knew about Madoff’s alleged fraud, and when they knew it.Numerous individuals, institutions and hedge funds lost money because of Madoff’s alleged scheme. But according to the Associated Press, losses for Banco Santander’s clients were among th...

EEC report on Land Grab law and real estate abuse in Valencia

European Parliament is threatening to freeze funding to Spain unless real estate abuses are brought to an end.Attack on the Spanish judicial system contained in the report from Danish M.P. Margarete Auken, was not welcomed by the Spanish. Spanish Euro MP’s from both the Socialists PSOE, and the Partido Popular, say they will add amendments to the draft of the report on the land grab and other alleged real estate abuse carried out in Spain,...

Juan Antonio Roca,fourth section of the Penal Hall of the National Court is to make public the sentence

The fourth section of the Penal Hall of the National Court is to make public the sentence against the ex Real Estate Assessor of the Marbella Town Hall, Juan Antonio Roca, and the five others accused in the Saqueo money laundering corruption case, on Friday.The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor has asked for a ten year prison sentence for Roca, for allegedly diverting...

Spain was last week one of three eurozone countries warned over its public finances

"I wish we could leave the eurozone. That way we could devalue."Spain was last week one of three eurozone countries warned over its public finances in the space of three days, underlining the parlous state of the single currency economies. Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's said Spain could face a downgrade after entering recession in the fourth quarter, citing concerns about its high private sector debt as well as its deteriorating...

Woman was shot in the leg by a man who tried to steal her car on Avenida Juan Carlos I in Estepona.

Woman was shot in the leg by a man who tried to steal her car on Avenida Juan Carlos I in Estepona. On Tuesday a Mercamálaga employee was jumped and mugged of more than one thousand euros takings which he was on his way to bankTwo thieves armed with a gun and a knife jumped a man as he was about to leave for work in Vélez-Málaga on Friday morning, and stole a case he was carrying which contained 60,000 euros worth of jewellery. The victim,...

The property market has been struck by a double whammy of the global credit crunch and an oversupply of new homes for sale. On the one hand, prices are falling for much the same reasons as they are in Britain: the drying-up of credit, distressed sellers failing to keep up their mortgage payments and falling consumer confidence. Barbara Wood, a director at The Property Finders, buying agents in Spain, says that property prices have fallen...

Estepona Town Hall's outstanding debt with Telefónica has forced the company to cut off the council's telephones.

Estepona Town Hall's outstanding debt with Telefónica has forced the company to cut off the council's telephones. The telephone company decided to bar outgoing calls from the Town Hall as a result of the local authority's outstanding debt of more than 200,000 euros. A few days ago a payment of 50,000 euros was made to the company to ensure that the telephones at the Local Police, fire station and Mayor's office weren't cut off t...

500 British residents demonstrated in Almeria

British residents of Almería, demonstrated on Friday in Almeria and marched to the offices of the Regional Government Housing Delegate in the city.The march was organized by AULAN, Abusos Urbanisticos Almanzora, No, and came a year to the day that the house belonging to the British couple, Len and Helen Prior was knocked down. Luis Caparrós, the Housing and Town Planning delegate met representatives from the march, including the Priors....

Juan Antonio Roca,has a placed reserved for him in Marbella Town Hall

ex Municipal Real Estate Assessor, Juan Antonio Roca, has a job to go to when he is released from prison. He has a placed reserved for him in Marbella Town Hall and they say that legally they are unable to sack him.Roca was promised a place in a local municipal body when the department he worked in, the Gerencia de Obras, was dissolved in 2006. At that time...

Sean Woodhall, links to a suspected £100million property scam Ocean View Properties(courtesy ofhttp://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/82370/Vanished)

Sean Woodhall, had links to a suspected £100million property scam and was due to settle his divorce within days. Born Sean Lovelock in London in 1965, he grew up in Cambridgeshire but made his business career in the Birmingham area. At 30 he changed his name to his mother’s surname, Woodhall, after a row with his father, Ron.In 1999 he married Victoria McLeod,...

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 showthat the arbitrary treatment towards property owners must be stopp...

Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Thani had €50m stolen from his account at Barclays in Marbella

Barclays has settled a legal claim raised by a senior member of the Qatari ruling family over an alleged €50m (£48m) fraud. The settlement, which has been secretly thrashed out over the past few weeks, related to claims from Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Thani, brother of the Emir of Qatar, that €50m had been stolen from his account at Barclays in Marbella between 2001 and 2003. The sheikh's wife Princess Kasia Al-Thani, who first discovered the...