Two people have been arrested and warrants have been issued against two others after 377 stolen beehives valued at more than €60,000 were discovered at an illegal honey farm near Cúllar (Granada) on the 17th October.

The hives had been stolen from seven bee farms in Villacastín (Segovia), Navas de San Antonio (Segovia), Honrubia (Cuenca), Puerto Lumbreras (Murcia) and Orihuela (Alicante).

Only six farmers reported the theft of their hives and as police suspected that the seventh may have been involved, they placed him under surveillance, eventually catching him and a second man at the illegal farm just before midnight last Monday.

Six containers each filled with 350 litres of honey were seized from a building near to where the stolen hives had been set up, and it later came to light that at least 21,000 litres of product had been sold to an establishment in Valencia without any kind of health certification. Following the search, arrest warrants for two other individuals were issued that are still pending execution.

THEY'VE tried airbags, printer cartridges and every conceivable body cavity. Now cocaine smugglers have another trick up their sleeves. Evidence from a clandestine lab in eastern Europe suggests that gangs are trying to hide cocaine by incorporating it into a host of innocent-looking transparent plastic consumer products, such as fish tanks, DVD cases or light fittings for cars. These could be imported en masse with no customs officer giving them a second look.

The trick came to light after police searched an abandoned tenement building in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where they suspected cocaine was being produced. There they found a makeshift lab complete with mixers, drying systems and containers filled with various solvents, plus translucent lumps of plastic littering the floor.

Spain's Civil Guard said officers approached the vessel, the Odyssey Explorer, as it left the British colony of Gibraltar off Spain's southern tip. Upon entering Spanish waters, the boat was ordered to the nearby Spanish port of Algeciras for inspection, police said.

The Civil Guard said it was acting on an order from a Spanish judge who in June instructed authorities to seize two vessels belonging to Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. if the boats left Gibraltar.

Another Odyssey vessel, Ocean Alert, was seized in July and released after a week.

"At this point, we are awaiting word from the Spanish judge about the inspection," Odyssey co-chairman Greg Stemm said in Florida. "We had again invited Spanish officials to inspect the Explorer in advance of our departure and they chose not to take us up on it."

The dispute began when Odyssey, a Tampa, Florida-based company that specializes in deep-sea explorations, announced the discovery in May of a colonial-era shipwreck in the Atlantic.


The find yielded more than 500,000 silver coins — weighing more than 17 tons — and gold coins, worked gold and other artifacts, a haul worth hundreds of millions that Odyssey said it flew to the U.S. from Gibraltar..
Spain filed claims in a U.S. federal court over the find, arguing that if the shipwrecked vessel was Spanish — or removed from its waters — the treasure belongs to Spain.

Odyssey insists the shipwreck, codenamed "Black Swan," was outside any country's territorial waters — but has not given its exact location or the name of the ship.

"We are sure that the Spanish government is now well aware that the (shipwreck) was not in Spanish waters and that the disposition of the coins is now subject to U.S. federal court jurisdiction, so we're not sure what the inspection of the Explorer is meant to accomplish," Stemm said.

Spain's Civilian Police have arrested 30 people in an operation against child pornography on the internet, an official source said Wednesday.

"It is the largest operation against child pornography in Spain's history," said Fernando Herrero-Tejedor, the prosecutor designated by the Criminality Information Service (SCI).

"Operation Santiago" ended on Tuesday with the confiscation of 81 computers which had "explicit sex" archives, including "very dense child pornography," in their hard discs, Herrero said.

Most of the cases depicted minors below 13-years of age, for which Penal Code allows prison sentences of between four and eight years if convicted.

Some 350 agents participated in the Civilian Police's action, which was also allowed to trace 1,200 sites in other countries that collaborate with the Spanish

Spanish investigators arrested 20 Moroccans suspected of stealing hundreds of electricity-generating solar panels worth $2.14 million and sending them to be sold in North Africa, police said Thursday.

The suspects are accused of taking about 2,000 solar panels and shipping them to Morocco aboard ferries.

An investigation began in April when 238 panels were stolen from two solar power parks in the northern province of Palencia, a police statement said. Many Spanish cities, especially in the country's south, boost electricity generation through the use of solar parks

Police said the suspects were believed to have used violence during some of their heists.

Several more gang members were thought to be on the run, and international warrants have been issued for their arrest, the statement said.

Fishermen said they discovered a boat off West Africa with seven dead migrants and one survivor on board. Spanish authorities said Thursday about 50 others were missing.
The Spanish fishing vessel found the boat off West Africa on Wednesday night, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said at a news conference.
He said at least six migrants were dead, and that a survivor said 50 people were missing.
However, skipper Jose Maria Abreu earlier told Cadena Ser radio that he counted seven dead, with the lone survivor in deplorable physical condition.

“The stench was unbearable. They must have been dead six or seven days,” Abreu told the radio station.

The boat was trying to reach Spain from Cape Verde, Perez Rubalcaba said.

He said the number of would-be migrants caught this year trying to sail from Africa to Spain, either to the mainland or the Canary Islands, is down sharp

28 year old Dutch man was arrested on Saturday evening after 30 bundles of marihuana weighing, in total, around 1,000kg, were found in the back of the stolen car he was driving.

The man was stopped at 8pm on the AP-7 toll motorway near Orihuela in Alicante rovince after a police traffic patrol realised that the BMW X5 he was driving, had been reported stolen from Guadalajara last February.

Following a short chase during which several other vehicles were superficially damaged, the driver stopped and was arrested soon afterwards once the drugs had been found.

33 year old woman was found dead at her home on the calle Enamorados in Sevilla's Bellavista district yesterday morning.

The woman, who had spent the night with a former lover, appears to have been strangled to death.

Her ex-boyfriend, who is an Argentinian of around the same age, took the dead woman's car and remains at large.

A spokeswoman from the Andalucía Women's Institute (IAM) said that the couple had separated some time ago.

If confirmed, this would be the 56th domestic violence murder in Spain so far this year and the 8th in the Andalucía region.

Fernando del Valle, 57, a Chilean citizen, who is said to have set up a network of property and front companies whose traces disappear into offshore accounts in the nearby British territory of Gibraltar, press reports said.

Some of the welter of documents seized by police since the weekend are understood to implicate an array of companies who have their fiscal base in Gibraltar. The tiny territory has just 30,000 residents but 80,000 companies.

Police said they suspect his law firm of having connections with various groups allegedly involved in narcotics, prostitution and other organized criminal activities.

Fernando del Valle arrived on the Marbella real estate scene in the late 1970s - early 1980s, after a brief stint practicing law in Madrid. In the coming years Del Valle, an aficionado of fine food and classical music, would become a key player in the booming real estate market in the southern coast of Spain.

According to Per Stangeland, head of criminology at the University of Málaga, in a recent Financial Times article said there is a direct link between the construction sector and real estate with organized crime. Around half of all Spanish real estate promotions are said to be on Spain's Mediterranean coastal areas.

"It is a driving force, perhaps the most important driving force, behind the construction industry ... How else is there to explain that (Málaga), with one of the highest unemployment and lowest incomes in Spain, can sustain a 1,600 per cent growth in the construction of private housing in five years, " said Per Stangeland, according to Financial Times.

Spanish authorities claim that much of Del Valle´s real estate operations were a means to launder cash for up to nine international organized crime groups. In particular, the authorities allege that the Del Valle law firm set up anonymous trusts - possibly hundreds of shell companies - in nearby Gibraltar, but also in other places likes the Netherlands and the Isle of Man

Since news of the operation hit the press, Spanish authorities have increasingly sought to place some of the blame on Gibraltar, which "is not cooperating in the fight against money laundering," according to Conde Pumpido.

an Interpol report notes: "There is an exceptionally large number of Estonian and Russian professional criminals carrying out, besides a large scale hashish and cocaine trafficking, remarkable sex business in the numerous hotels and restaurants of Costa del Sol." Meanwhile, according to Online Security, "Italian crime groups' longtime investments in real estate and entertainment enterprises--particularly gambling casinos--in Germany, France, Monaco, Spain's Costa del Sol, and the Caribbean are conduits for money laundering."

ONE doubting detective has called it The Spanish Job. The rumoured abduction of the notorious Westies in Alicante could be a con job.That’s the fear among a number of gardaí who have had long dealings with Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg, the two leaders of the Westies crime gang.

“It could be an elaborate hoax, something set up by a couple of them to take pressure off Coates, who, if he comes back here, will be arrested. If he disappears, he doesn’t exist,” said one senior garda source.

Last night, an unconfirmed report suggested that an associate of Stephen Sugg had contacted his family to say he was safe.

The Guardia Civil yesterday arrested 36 year old Irishman Tony Armstrong, implying that he was involved with the deaths of two fellow Irishmen whose bodies were uncovered in Catral

Sources stated that Armstrong had rented the warehouse where the bodies of Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg were discovered In Spain they hooked up with other Irish and British criminals on the run and became involved with Moroccan thugs in drug running operations from North Africa via Spain to Ireland.

They started to throw their weight around, as they had in Dublin, but there were soon mutterings that instead of being an asset to their new cronies they were becoming a liability.

Other expatriate criminals feared the high-profile swaggering duo were threatening to upset their low-key but lucrative lifestyle.

According to well-informed expat sources on the Costa Blanca the pair had written their own death warrants.

They vanished suddenly in January 2004. Initially, there were suspicions they had staged their own disappearance because they had been threatened by rival gangsters.

But whispers started reaching the ears of detectives back home that they had been murdered

The Spanish Customs Service yesterday stopped and searched a yacht some 60 nautical miles off Torrevieja and discovered two tons of hashish on board. Consequently, they demanded that the craft follow them to the nearest port, when it was deliberately set on fire by the four people on board, with two of them jumping overboard, but were rescued by a Zodiac from the Customs service, who also managed to extinguish the blaze. The partially burned yacht is now under police guard in Alicante Port, whilst the four men on board – two Spaniards and two Moroccans – are being interrogated by police

Police sources yesterday were said to be ‘furious’ that due to a lack of coordination between two Ministries – Interior that controls the Guardia Civil and Finance that controls the Customs Police – enabled drug traffickers to get away. It was last Tuesday when a group was discovered unloading more than a ton of Hashish on Bonmati beach between Santa Pola and Elche, and placing the cargo inside a powerful BMW car. The customs service had already raised its suspicions as the launch carrying the drug was traveling without any lights, and advised the specialised department of the Guardia Civil. However, the Customs patrol did not wait for the Guardia Civil to attend the scene, but instead, not only revealed their position to the traffickers, but also gave chase, which resulted in the gang abandoning their cargo on the beach and easily avoiding detention by the customs service as their launch was considerably more powerful than their pursuers. Meanwhile, the Anti Drugs division of the Alicante branch of the Guardia Civil apparently decided to send a patrol down to the area without previously advising their colleagues in Santa Pola, which resulted in the patrol turning up at the wrong beach as they did not have sufficient knowledge of the local terrain. The Finance Ministry yesterday issued a statement to the effect that it was ‘highly pleased’ over the confiscation of the drug shipment, but made no mention of the traffickers’ escape.

Members of the National Police and the Guardia Civil have revealed that they have come across two bodies in Catral in Alicante Province. Members of the Gardai – the Irish Police Force – who are in Spain and collaborating with the security forces have expressed the belief that the bodies are of Stephen Sugg and Shane Coates, two members of the notorious Westies Drug Gaming that went missing from their homes in Torrevieja more than two years ago. The pair were last seen alive at the end of January 2004, when they told their respective girlfriends that they were ‘going out for a while’ and left in Mr. Sugg’s car. Insiders have expressed the view that the pair tried to establish a cocaine smuggling operation based in Alicante and in the process crossed an international gang of drugs dealers, who could have abducted the two men and had them killed.

petty theft, such as bag snatching is commonplace, particularly in tourist resorts and big cities. Most of this can be avoided with a little forethought - carry valuables under your clothes if possible and watch for people who get unnecessarily close to you at airports, at stations, on trains or buses or on the street. Never leave baggage unattended and avoid crushes. Also be cautious with people who come up to offer or ask you something for no good reason. This could be a ploy to distract you, especially as many petty thieves work in gangs.

A friend of mine had a really bad experience recently. He has a villa in the Mijas area and in the early hours of the morning whilst he was sleeping, some young foreigners broke through the bars of one of his windows and got in the house.

The really scary thing was that they jumped on his bed, put a knife to his throat and then tied him up. They were really after money and after spotting a safe in the house demanded that he open it. The problem was that the safe had come with the house when he bought it and he didn't have the key!

Anyway, he managed to convince them that he really didn't have the key so they took his cash, an expensive watch and then drove off in his car (which was recovered the next day).

This is a truly frightening experience. Imagine if it had been a woman on her own? My friend is no small man himself, he's about 6 foot 5 and built like a brick....you get the idea.

unidentified British man aged 29 and a woman aged 21 died when they tried to cross the A-7 highway near Puerto Banús around 6 am last Saturday. They were trying to cross near the Tigermarket petrol station and the Hotel Rui when they were hit by a car. They were only 300 metres away from an underground pedestrian tunnel.

The Guardia Civil de Trafico have reported that nearly 400 drivers failed the breathalyser test in Andalucia from midnight on Friday, August 10th to midnight on Sunday, August 12th. In the provinces of Seville, Huelva, Cadiz and Cordoba, 186 drivers tested positive, and another 189 in Granada, Jaen, Malaga and Almeria. Malaga drivers were the second largest group of losers in the points system in Andalucia. Since it was implemented last July, they lost 61,836 points in a total of 18,647 traffic offences. Only Seville has a worse record - 185,038 points lost in 51,222 traffic offences.

According to a recent study, Andalucia is the second worst area in Spain for robberies and lost credit cards involving tourists and Malaga province has the worst record for handbag snatchers. These prefer foreign tourists of either sex, especially at airports, while their Spanish victims tend to be men aged between 45 and 54. More than half the robberies in the summer involve credit cards.

40-year-old Briton was arrested at his home in Manilva last week accused of running over a Guardia Civil officer at the border with Gibraltar. The man allegedly drove off in his convertible Porsche Carrera after being asked to pull over at the vehicle checkpoint. The officer jumped onto the rear bumper of the Porsche in an attempt to stop him and clung on for almost a kilometre but jumped off when her realised the car was not going to slow down. He was taken to hospital with several injuries. The incident happened several days before the man was tracked down to Manilva. A Guardia Civil spokesman said the man is known to Spanish authorities, having been involved in tobacco smuggling from Gibraltar to Spain in the past.

Al Qaeda’s Number Two, Al Zawahiri, once again referred to the terrorist movement’s intention of recovering “Al-Andalus”, a name that is generally considered to mean Andalucia, although it was the name for original Moorish invaders gave to the the whole of Spain. In an 80-minute video broadcast over the Internet, Al Zawahiri also called for Morocco and Algeria to be cleansed of the “sons of Spain”. The regional government of Ceuta, one of the two Spanish enclaves in Morocco, warned that the Spanish government should consider the threat as being made against the whole country. Osama Bin Laden first referred to Al-Andalus in October 2001 when he said it was imperative to avoid the tragedy of Al-Andalus - the expulsion of the Moors in 1492 - from being repeated in Palestine.

One Friday lunch time in April 2006 I left the Notary in Torrox Costa with a cheque for €18,000 after selling my flat. This was to be the deposit for my new permanent home in Spain.

I placed the cheque, which was made out in my name, into my handbag and left it there till the following Monday when I was to put it into my bank account.

On arriving at the bank I discovered I had lost the cheque. After a thorough search I phoned my solicitor who immediately contacted the bank to put a stop on it. I then went to the local police and filled in the appropriate form to record the loss.

I expected to pay a small fee to the issuing bank to write me out a new cheque.The bank confirmed that the money had not been drawn out of the bank and remained in their account.

It was at this stage that I learnt a very hard lesson in Spanish life.

The bank did not have to give me my money back and the only way I could attempt to get it back was to hire the services of a solicitor who would then have to take it to court and ask the court if I could have it my money back.

As I said at the beginning of this tale, all this happened 18 months ago. Since then I have tried every way possible to get my money back. I have contacted British MP’s EMP’s and 2 other solicitors. No one is interested in helping. The case as been to court twice with mounting costs to me and there is still no signs of my dwindling money.

No one can believe me when I tell them what is happening.

The money is mine, the cheque was made out to me, it has never been cashed, the bank are happy to confirm that MY money is still in their bank gathering interest which I am not entitled to, but I still can not have it.

Now in good old English law, and quite a few other countries, to permanently deprive someone of their property and assume ownership is THEFT.

We are supposed to be in Europe now and yet still we are coming up against really out dated laws that have no place in today’s society.

€18,000 is a lot of money and I have suffered great hardship and more financial loss trying to get it back. I know it was a really stupid thing to loose it, and as someone who is usually very careful with money I really do not know how I lost it.

I don’t know if I will ever get my money back, and if I do, how much I will actually get after everyone takes their cut. I just want to warn everyone out there that the loss of a cheque can be a very costly mistake

The so-called “rapist of Valle de Hebron” who was released from jail in Barcelona on September 22nd has left the town of Iznalloz in Granada province where he was reported to be staying with relatives because of pressure from the town’s residents. José Rodriguez Salvador had served 16 years of a 20-year sentence for raping 16 women and had resisted all attempts to rehabilitate him. More than 500 people gathered outside his uncle’s house in Iznalloz late last week protesting his presence there but apparently Salvador had already left town.

Marbella judge, óscar Pérez ordered ex-Marbella mayor Julian Muñoz’s release from Jaén prison on the condition that he put up jail of 50,000 euros. The ruling was made in connection with a case separate from the ‘Caso Malaya’ urban planning crimes he is accused of. The bail was set in relation to money laundering crimes in which his current partner, Isabel Pantoja, and ex wife, Maite Zaldívar, are also involved. The judge also said that if released he would have to report to the authorities every two weeks and would have his passport removed from his possession as the suspicion that Muñoz has siphoned off funds to Switzerland is high and therefore so is the possibility that he would flee the country.
At the time of going to press on Thursday Muñoz’s lawyers announced that they would be paying the bail in the afternoon. However sources at the Prisons Authority insisted that the ex-Mayor would not be let out of jail yet even if the bail is paid as he still has time to serve on previous sentences for planning crimes.

has been created in order for you to be able to forget the daily stress of life’s problems for as long as you would like to. We are offering some of the best service available. In order to do so, we have created our own webpage to be in closer contact with you and benefit from your feed back to make our services better all the time. Villa Libertad has six air conditioned rooms, swimming pool, jacuzzi, bar and gardens. The house is in an area, private and discreetly away from the crowd yet near enough to every convenience. It is a place where intimacy is our essential concern. You will discover a surprising sense of ease and confident charm in our establishment.

security guard who was serious injured at the Space disco in Tarifa continues in intensive care at the Puerta del Mar hospital in Cádiz but is said to be making satisfactory progress. On August 24 the guard, a local Tarifa man, was found by one of the owners of the disco brutally beaten and stabbed. He was semi-conscious, bound hand and foot, and covered in a blanket. He has been hospitalised with serious breathing problems and a chest infection whilst the unknown assailants remain at large.

Two wanted criminals were arrested in a Torremolinos drug bust last week. The National Police initially picked up the two men, aged 23 and 24, for drug dealing after officers found 17 packets of cocaine and 80 grams of hash. When a check was run on their names, officers discovered that both men had extensive police records and both had outstanding arrest warrants.

Guardia Civil officers have made three follow-up arrests in the illegal-immigration case that the week before last saw 10 people, including a National Police officer, arrested in Torremolinos and Benalmádena. The three new arrests were of people involved with the two real estate offices raided during the original police operation. All those arrested in the case have been charged and released

The Guardia Civil arrested two men in Mijas last week for a string of stick-ups committed with a fake pistol. The men were picked up in the Molino de Viento neighbourhood, where they both live, at 2am Wednesday morning. Authorities say the two used the fake gun, which was recovered during the arrests, to hold up numerous pedestrians in neighbouring Fuengirola

The Guardia Civil have arrested two men in connection with the death of a 65-year-old night watchman whose body was found on the morning of September 24 after an overnight robbery at a Cártama petrol station. The arrest of the two suspects, both local Guadalhorce Valley men, came after investigators reviewed the filling station’s security camera tapes from the night of the incident.

A British man, who has not been named for legal reasons, who stood accused of murdering a married couple of the same nationality, with whom he lived in Mijas, has been found guilty by the jury.

41 arrests of nationals from six countries who allegedly have "numerous connections between groups of organised international crimes and a number of suspects implicated in Spain or abroad in serious criminal activities".

Illegally siphoned funds from Russia's crippled oil company Yukos had been discovered as part of the investigation, something the oil company has denied.

One of the key suspects is the head of the law firm, Fernando del Valle, 57, a Chilean citizen, who is said to have set up a network of property and front companies whose traces disappear into offshore accounts in the nearby British territory of Gibraltar, press reports said.

Some of the welter of documents seized by police since the weekend are understood to implicate an array of companies who have their fiscal base in Gibraltar. The tiny territory has just 30,000 residents but 80,000 companies.

A 34-year-old businessman was shot to death in Castalla in Alicante Province on Thursday night. The man, who apparently owned a construction business, was shot in his home in what police believe was a settling of accounts between drug barons. Following the shooting, police discovered two kilos of cocaine in the home, along with machinery for preparing small doses of the drug as well as 200 ecstasy tablets.

A 63-year-old Dutchman was detained yesterday in Alfas del Pi following an international arrest warrant issued by France for drug trafficking and organising criminal gangs. He is also considered to be the head of the organization two of whose members were discovered driving a truck and a car loaded with drugs at a motorway toll station in France last year. In that operation, two tons of cannabis resin was confiscated. Sources have stated that following his arrest, the Dutchman now faces up to 30 years inside a French jail

arrested Francisco Javier Martinez Sanmillan the most wanted man in Spain, after a close examination of a series of fingerprints. He had been ‘on the lam’ for twelve years. He had also managed to elude capture in ‘Operation Necora’ against the Galician drug Cartels, and also ‘Operation Temple’ which was carried out against the Columbian cartels operating in Spain. He is expected to appear in court today, and his arrest was a considerable triumph for the police as he had undertaken a complete facial transformation.

The Guardia Civil of Torrevieja yesterday detained the head of the Municipal police force along with his deputy and two officers, after receiving orders to do so from a local judge. More arrests are expected today, and all are accused of creating a series of false documents and of failing to investigate crimes. A local judge has undertaken the current case during the last few months, and yesterday’s arrests were carried out very discreetly according to local sources. Following their arrest, the four were taken to a local court and allowed to go free on condition that they not leave Torrevieja.

Microsoft's cyber-crime unit has had some notable successes to date, having taken action against 150 spammers, tracked down the Sasser virus author, caught the two people in Morocco alleged to be behind the Zotob virus that hit some major US corporations including American Express, and nabbed a Bulgarian phishing gang.

The father of a fourteen-month girl found dead in a wooded area near Istán (Málaga) shortly after midnight yesterday was arrested on a charge of imprudent homicide and will remain in custody for a further 48 hours following a preliminary court ruling earlier today.

The 32 year old man from Marbella turned up in Istán, at around 8.30pm last Saturday night; drunk, hysterical and covered in blood and bruises, claiming that he had lost his daughter as they were out for a stroll.

A number of local volunteers joined the Guardia Civil in the ensuing search, and the girl was found - still alive - four hours later floating in the river Molinos. However, attempts to revive her failed, and she died soon after. The autopsy revealed that she drowned.

One of the survivors from the immigrant boat that sank 80 miles south of Fuerteventura has told reporters that, apart from the dead body found when they were rescued, they had been forced to throw overboard the bodies of eleven others - nine adult males and two minors - during their treacherous six or seven-day journey from north Africa.

This means that a total of thirteen immigrants died as one of the mostly seriously injured survivors, who was being treated for severe sunburn at a hospital on Gran Canaria, died yesterday.

, who is thought to be suffering from some kind of mental problems, has been arrested in Los Cristianos in the south of Tenerife accused of murdering his wife.

The man was arrested on Saturday evening when he walked into a bar in a row of shops below where he and his wife had been living for the last eight months, and asked the bar owner if he knew where he lived.

The bar owner explained that he lived in one of the apartments above, but when he saw blood stains on the man's clothes, called in the police.

The woman, who was the same age as her husband, was later found dead at the couple's home with multiple stab wounds.

José Mariano Trillo-Figueroa, who, apart from being the lawyer employed by Jaime Giménez Arbe, the armed bank robber better known as 'The Loner, is also the brother of former PP Defence minister, Federico Trillo, was arrested at his office yesterday afternoon accused of internet fraud.

According to Javier Barroso, writing in today's El Pais, Trillo, who was released from custody by police this morning, is accused of trying to sell a four metre high bronze statue not belonging to him on the internet.

The scam allegedly started several months ago when Trillo took photos of the statue, that was in storage on an industrial estate in Madrid, then posted them on an on-line auction site.

It was the statue's owner, who is one of Trillo's female business partners, who reported the matter to the police after paying the €8,000 euros demanded by Trillo and not receiving the item.

A source close to the investigation said yesterday that "the weight of bronze alone in the statue is worth at least €24,000."

It has emerged that three Guardia Civil officers based in El Ejido (Almería) were arrested last Saturday after small quantities of drugs, seemingly ready for distribution, were found during searches of the officers' homes.

The names of the three officers, as well as all other details concerning the arrests, have been withheld on the orders of the judge investigating the case.

It seems that the officers were dealing cannabis resin and marihuana on a small scale locally.

These arrests follow the detentions of two other Guardia Civil officers from Huércal de Almería and Roquetas de Mar on the 3rd September for providing tip-offs to different gangs of drug dealers to help them avoid police controls set up along the Almería coast.

Spanish-based Mickey "Pimpernel" Greene, a millionaire criminal wanted across Europe and north Africa.
Mr Loraine-Smith said of Greene: "He was and continues to be involved in importing large amounts of drugs into this country."

26-year-old British dealer was recently arrested near Marbella with false passports, eight mobile phones and a British-registered Mitsubishi 4x4. Another British gang tried to smuggle 50 kilos of cocaine in a liquid paste inside shampoo bottles using couriers throughout Britain and in Ibiza.

is one of the most senior figures in Britain's underworld, and has been on the run for 20 years. Green was recently linked to a £150m cocaine-smuggling syndicate and has close connections with the Adams family, the London gangsters. Pat Adams, the eldest of the brothers, is understood to be in hiding in Andalucia, while the body of one dealer known to have links to the notorious north London family has been discovered butchered and stuffed into two trunks near Torremolinos.

Londoner Green, 62, is said to have £10 million in cash buried in hills above Spain's Costa Del Sol. He is nicknamed The Pimpernel for dodging arrest and is currently still on the run.

Ecstasy cost €10 (£6.81) a pill, and about seven grams (a quarter of an ounce) of hashish was double that. Cocaine was €50 per gram,

Soca officers confirmed last week that they have intensified their scrutiny of the links between Ibiza and the Costa del Sol, from where some of Britain's most wanted drug barons run their empires. Co-operation with Spain's Special Central Unit for Locating Fugitives (UCLF) has recently been stepped up. At least six suspected major British criminals have been arrested in the province of Malaga, including Brian Wright, who is alleged to have smuggled £300m of cocaine into Britain.

Londoner William Moy, 43,who was shot five times as he sat in a busy cafe with his family. Other men just disappeared on the dusty roads that wind through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The body of at least one other drug dealer is believed to have been buried under cement in a Spanish villa's foundations.

Moy's death, which characterises the so-called settling of accounts or grudges between gangs, proved the final straw for the Spanish authorities. Extra British officers were drafted to what the locals call the Costa Nostra as the foreign drug syndicates began increasing orders to satisfy the huge market in the Balearics.

Spanish police had noted a bloody month among the competing British drug barons who had settled on the Costa del Sol. At least four British and Irish drug dealers were murdered during July. The corpses of Shane Coates, 31, and Stephen Sugg, 26, both from Dublin, were hauled from a concrete grave near Malaga. Each had been shot twice in the mouth from point-blank range. Within days the body of the eccentric British playboy and drug runner Colin Nobes, 47, was discovered under a motorway bridge near Denia.

an incident in the late-night bar area of Tutti Frutti Square left two young men, two Guardia Civil officers and a local police officer injured. Local police advised bar owners in the area last week that they must now observe more closely their licensed opening hours, shutting down outside terraces at 2.00 and indoor bars at 3.00, with both closing times extended by an hour on Fridays, Saturdays and any night preceding a public holiday.
Officers say they have received complaints of late-night noise from residents in the area and as a result, the enforcement of legislation dating from March 2002 is being tightened up. The news, however, was not welcomed by many businesses owners in the area, who chose to close on Monday night of last week in an act of protest. The following day, a delegation of proprietors from Plaza Tutti Frutti and neighbouring Calle Antonio Millón attended a meeting at the Town Hall to address the pro

Thousands of people who own houses, many recently constructed along the coast, are in danger of losing their homes to bulldozers because they were built illegally.

Under the controversial "Land Grab" law in Valencia, dozens of expats - after buying their homes - have been forced to pay thousands of euros in fees to local developers for improvements in local infrastructure.

Swathes of coastline around Alicante and Marbella are dominated by ugly, half-built developments. And there seems to be no end to this building.

Locals say the unfinished development at La Marina in the province of Alicante is the biggest in Europe. Expats and Spaniards are fed up.


Fernando Gadea is a Spanish former policeman who leads another new party: Progress and Order.

Judah Eleazar Binstock, is a 78 year old British businessman and financier and is now believed to have been the person who financed trips taken by Marbella councillors the week before the motion of no confidence was placed against Julián Muñoz. He is now thought to have been hidden in the background and pulling the strings behind much of the corruption in Marbella. This information has been given to Judge Miguel Angel Torres in the declaration from the ex councillor Carmen Revilla.

In the last month, three men were murdered in their car when it was riddled with bullets by waiting assassins. And in August an Estonian man was shot in the head in a Marbella bar called The Point.


Another man was found in a burnt-out car with spent rounds littering the ground. Last year in The Point, William Moy, 43, from London, was gunned down.


Dublin gangsters Shane Coates, 31, and Stephen Sugg, 27, and British playboy drug baron Colin Nobes, 47, were also murdered. Coates and Sugg were found in a cement pit. Nobes was dumped under a bridge.


But an insider at the Spanish Serious and Organised Crime Agency said: “The difference between the two is that the British criminals use murder and threats only as a last resort. The Colombians are more ready to settle scores.”

number of gangland hits over the last month.the Spanish police are struggling to cope with the new crime epidemic.


“It’s very heavy duty down here – they are all fighting for turf. People are savagely tortured to death, it’s totally gruesome.


“These gangs want to send a message to everyone, that if you screw with them you’ll die in an unpleasant fashion.


“The Spanish police are very good but they are totally outnumbered. Every few days they round up another gang.


“But when they catch one, another 10 spring up in their place. It’s big money because a massive percentage of drugs in Europe come in through southern Spain.


“You can see these guys everywhere, driving about like Premiership footballers in their baby Bentleys. A lot of the problems we have here are with eastern European criminals – they are very violent.


“You get people from the former Yugoslavia here who used to work in death squads. They are ethnic cleansers.


“You can be out with the wife and kids and suddenly the bloke at the next table has his head blown off. There are armed gangs of brigands roaming. You have to be a bit careful who you are mixing with.”

Portuguese police seized three tonnes of cocaine worth EUR 150 million bound for Spain. From there, police believe, the drugs were headed for the Netherlands or other European countries.

Spain's elite Organised Crime and Drugs Unit blocked EUR 1.5 million in bank accounts run by the gangs. And this was just the cash the police could trace.

These are the Albanians, Slovenians, Bulgarians and Romanians who have already played havoc in other parts of the Europe.

The gangs' main business is drugs, money-laundering, fire-arms and stolen vehicles.

‘The peculiarly Colombian way of “settling scores” means the number of drug-related murders is thought to have risen in Galicia’
Last week, a gang, mostly made up of Bulgarians, was arrested for stealing luxury Porsches, BMWs, Range Rovers and Mercedes, owned by celebrities and sporting personalities. The cars were being shipped to the UK and Eastern Europe.

These are the latest in a long-line of mob killings in this part of the Costa del Sol.

Two died after a hairdresser's was peppered with gunfire
On 18 October this year, an Eastern European man was shot dead in Marbella.

In May, a policeman and a known French criminal were injured in a shooting in the same city while the officer was involved in trying to track down members of a gang.

So as more and more Britons, Germans and other foreigners look for their dream homes in the sun here, how many realise the scale of organiwed crime around them?

In 2003 alone, Spanish police smashed 53 separate gangs in the Costa del Sol.

A seven-year-old boy, shot dead by masked killers in Marbella, was the latest victim of organised crime in the Costa del Sol.
Unwelcome visitors
A seven-year-old boy, shot dead by masked killers in Marbella, was the latest victim of organised crime in the Costa del Sol. Graham Keeley examines how criminal gangs are changing in one of Spain's most popular regions.


Marbella is one of the Costa del Sol's most upmarket resorts

Caught in the cross-fire, as three hooded gangsters peppered the hairdresser's with machine guns, he didn't stand a chance.

The seven-year-old boy and a 36-year-old Italian haridresser were killed. Three others, including the boy's aunt and another man - thought to be the real target - were also injured.

The gunmen at first pursued a car, firing at it as it sped through the streets, before stopping outside the hairdresser's.

Police found 50 bullet shells, apparently from a machine-gun, lying on the ground outside. They have yet to establish a motive.