Organized crime is increasing on Spain's touristic southern coast, the Costa del Sol, where more than 700 international criminal rings operate, the far-left party Izquierda Unida (IU) said in a report released Friday. The number of criminal organizations present in Malaga province grew by almost 10 per cent in 2007.
More than 50 abductions and settlements of accounts occurred in 2006 on the Costa del Sol, where police dismantled over 130 criminal rings, detaining more than 1,200 people, over three years. The report stressed the link between organized crime and political corruption on the Costa del Sol. More than 170 people including mayors, officials and entrepreneurs have been detained in connection with scandals linked especially with the construction sector in the region in the recent years.
IU representative Antonio Romero accused regional authorities of not taking sufficient measures against organized crime.

Drugs of all types were confiscated by the police in Almoradi recently . Three youths and a man were arrested on suspicion of supplying drugs .
The police discovered amphetamines , ecstacy , cocaine , crystal meths , hashish and cash . There was also the cutting agent made of a chemical compound used in such dealings .The males were all Spanish and were seen by police in a car on an industrial estate well known for drug dealing .

Two military planes breaking the sound barrier have been revealed to be the cause of two loud explosions heard at 0940am this morning in Málaga and along parts of the Costa del Sol, especially in Torremolinos and Fuengirola.There was a fair amount of panic in the city as people feared that some sort of terrorist attack may have taken place.The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that two military planes on exercises were responsible.

Marvin Herbert, head of security for a beachfront bar in the millionaires’ marina playground of Puerto Banus.In his mid-30s, he is said to have spent several hours drinking coffee alone on the terrace of Solly’s Diner in Puerto Banus on Wednesday.
He was joined by a second man, also thought to be British, at around 7.30pm. The pair were talking before the attacker pulled a gun from his pocket and shot Herbert five times as he walked towards his blue BMW across the road.
Despite being shot in the eye, twice in the crotch, once in the arm and once in the leg, he survived.He is said to be in a serious condition in a Spanish hospital.

Two loud blasts have jolted the southern Spanish holiday resort of Malaga this morning - but baffled police said there was no sign of any explosion."They were heard practically all over Malaga. People are saying that it came from different places, but we haven't been able to find anything," a spokeswoman for the local police said.Spanish radio reported that a jet breaking the sound barrier might have caused the blasts, which rattled the city just days after the government blamed Basque rebels ETA for a bombing offensive in northern Spain.

accused is lawyer Fernando del Valle, who the prosecution considers to be the ‘brain’ behind the scheme which allegedly laundered money originating from drug trafficking, prostitution and tax fraud. Also suspected of involvement are two notaries, two female employees of Del Valle’s Marbella office and some clients, the majority of whom are foreigners. Del Valle spent six months in prison and was released in September 2005 on bail of 600,000 euros. The prosecution is requesting that he be sentenced to 15 years in jail, ordered to pay a 37.1 million euro fine plus compensation of 610,846 euros and a guarantee of 13.8 million euros for having laundered 12 million euros, according to the prosecutor’s report. The anti-corruption prosecutor alleges that Del Valle carried out 13 money laundering offences, 141 of falsifying documents, three offences against the tax authorities and two others against the legal authorities by providing false testimony.

Residents on Calle Teba in the Los Pacos area of Fuengirola were witnesses to a drive-by shooting on Sunday night, which police suspect was a settling of scores between rival gangs. Officers say that the passengers of a passing vehicle shot at properties on the street before driving away down Calle Yunquera. Another car then set off in pursuit of the first. No injuries were reported but several properties were hit by bullets. Police hope to make arrests in connection with the incident within the next few days.

Police are reported to be investigating possible links between the shooting of a British man in Calle Ramón Areces in Puerto Banús on Wednesday night, with an earlier shooting incident at the Nikki Beach discotec.They think the British victim of the latest shooting, named with the initials M.H. could be linked to those who took part in the shooting at Nikki Beach. He remains in a serious by stable condition in hospital after being shot five times including to his right eye, right arm, right leg, pelvis and to the genitals.He is from Liverpool and has been living in Marbella with his partner for some years. Government Sub Delegate, Hilario López Luna, said that he has a previous police record and has served prison time in Britain. Yesterday the victim's home was searched as police tried to establish a motive for the shooting.Speaking in Algeciras yesterday, the Minister for the Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, said that it was thought the shooting was linked to a criminal settling of scores, probably over drugs.The man who is accused of carrying out the Nikki Beach shooting last August 23 is due to appear in court later today. In that shooting a 42 year old man was shot in both his legs.The day before that also saw an Irish man injured after being shot on the terrace of the Aloha Gardens bar.Puerto Banús became the scene of the third shoot out in Marbella in a month yesterday. A man in his thirties from Liverpool in England was shot in the face and the arm when he tried to get into his British registered dark blue BMW in Calle Ramón Areces at 7.30 p.m.
Witnesses in bars close by said that the man who fired the shots, some of which hit the victim in the face, spoke to the Liverpool man minutes before.
The shooter, apparently also British, made his get away in a waiting car. Police officers, who were quickly on the scene and have seized the bullet shells for investigation, believe that the shooting was a settling of criminal scores.
One witness said that: "We thought the shots were fire crackers until we saw the victim on the ground with his face blown apart and covered in blood. It was like a film, he was having convulsions although he was was able to say something."
The victim was taken to the Costa del Sol Hospital where he was being treated for two bullet wounds in the face, one near his eye, and another in his arm, and his condition was reported as being serious.

Michael ‘Dermot’ McArdle goes on trial in Spain next week to face charges in relation to the death of his wife Kelly-Anne Corcoran in Costa Del Sol over eight years ago.Kelly-Anne (28) plunged to her death from the fourth floor balcony of a hotel in Marbella while the couple were on holiday with their two children in February 2000. McArdle, (39), from Haggardstown, who denies any involvement in his wife’s death, faces 14 years in prison if convicted of murder. The trial is set to begin on Monday in the Provincial Court of Malaga, Marbella. Members of the Corcoran family are expected to travel to Spain for the trial. Documents leaked to the Spanish newspaper ‘La Opinion de Malaga’ earlier this summer revealed that the prosecution’s case centres around evidence of an alleged struggle which appeared to have taken place in the couple’s hotel room prior to her fall. It was initially believed that Kelly-Anne died accidentally on the first day of the couple’s week-long holiday on February 12th, 2000, while trying to prevent her eldest son from toppling over the balcony. She survived the horrific fall but died of her injuries the following day, tragically leaving behind two sons aged just four and two years old at the time.

National police are questioning a Dublin man over a €7m drug seizure in the country.
The 62-year-old Irish man was arrested as he and three Spaniards berthed a boat which is alleged to have been full of cannabis. Police pounced on the vessel as it landed in Cadiz in the south of Spain. It is believed that the boat was carrying a tonne of dope. Detectives questioning the Dubliner have refused to reveal his identity except to say that his initials are DAJ. Police sources have said that this seizure was part of a major operation and have heralded it as a big success in the fight against drugs. Before the arrests, the gang is believed to have been under surveillance for two months. Gardai in Ireland say they are not aware of the man's identity, but said he may have entered Spain illegally. It is believed that the gardai were not involved with the arrests and were not asked to liaise with the Spanish police. It is suspected that the arrested man could be travelling on a false passport or may have dual nationality. The drugs that were seized off the boat will be forensically examined in the coming days, and Spanish police will be investigating who the drugs were destined for.

15 year old has gone missing in Andalucía with the announcement that 15 year old Saray Tinoco who vanished from Lepe, Huelva last Wednesday, a week ago.
Saray Tinoco left home last Wednesday with her I.D. but with no money.
Saray left home at 5pm with her ID card, but without any money, and the family says they had no idea that she may have wanted to run away. They say Saray said she was going to dye her hair, but she never returned for supper.
The Guardia Civil have now organised a search for the youngster.

The group had some 60,000 clients, most of them British, between Benidorm in Alicante and Vera in Almería.
The Judicial Police from the Torrevieja Guardia Civil has broken up an international gang which had been pirating British satellite television signals and then distributing them to British clients resident in the provinces of Alicante, Murcia and Almería in an area between Benidorm and Vera.
The group, based in an industrial estate at Algorfa, Alicante, had more than 60,000 clients, most of them British who paid 590 € for the installation of the system and then a monthly subscription of between 18 and 22 €. A total of 500 million € is thought to have been defrauded by the group which made no tax payments to Hacienda.
A total number of 14 people have been arrested, including eight Spaniards, three Britons and a Byelorussian, Rumanian and Russian.Investigations started following a complaint placed by Sogecable, the owners of the Spanish Digital Plus satellite system

A man in his 30’s, first reported to be Eastern European by some sources, but now considered to be British by most media, has been injured in a shooting incident in a cafeteria in Puerto Banús, Marbella. At least five shots were fired in the port at 7,30pm last night, according to emergency service sources, with four of the shots hitting the man in the face after a first shot to the knee. He is reported to be seriously injured. Witnesses described the victim as a tall and athletic blonde man, and say he is British, from Liverpool, and has been living in Marbella for several years. They say the shooter, who is also thought to be British, talked to him for some time before opening fire.Police think that what was the third shooting in the town in less than a month, was a possible settling of criminal scores.
The man was shot as he left a cafeteria in Calle Ramón Areces, to walk to his car, a dark blue British registered BMW which he had left illegally parked with the windows open.

Four people , one of them a policewoman , have been arrested by Murcia’s National Police drugs squad .They have been caught for distributing and selling designer drugs . The supposed head of the gang and his policewoman wife are residents of Los Montesinos and they are thought to be responsible for acquiring and cutting the drugs before selling them on .The four people had been under investigation for sometime by the drug squad and when they were apprehended the squad couped a big haul of many types of drugs from speed to hallucinogenic mushrooms .The suspects have been reported to the courts at Orihuela and Torrevieja .

David Oakley was today found guilty of a series of frauds and deceptions in which he cheated customers of his holiday and travel companies.A jury took just 20 minutes to decide that Oakley was guilty of 12 offences which included fraudulent trading and using forged cheques - and then heard he had fled to Spain as police closed in on him.The prosecution said Oakley, 62, was a conman who sold timeshare and holiday club memberships.Oakley, formerly of Salters Lane, Shrewsbury, was not in the dock and his trial was heard in his absence.During the six-day hearing the jury was not told Oakley had absconded three years ago. But after the verdicts the jury heard that Oakley was in Spain, as Mr David Matthew, prosecuting, made a confiscation application under the Proceeds of Crime Act.Recorder Denis Desmond was due to pass sentence on Oakley later today.Oakley was found guilty of obtaining £15,000 from Adrian Ramian by deception by claiming the money was to be invested in a holiday resort in Antigua.The jury also returned guilty verdicts on 11 other charges, including that Oakley ran Caribbean Marketing UK Ltd and Voyager International Ltd, and formed and promoted VIP Connections Ltd when he was banned from being a company director. He was also found guilty of fraudulently running two of the businesses knowing that the liabilities could not be met.He was found guilty of five specimen offences of forging cheques using Mr Ramian’s signature. And he was found guilty of perverting the course of justice by giving false evidence in a civil case to prevent his home being repossessed.He had initially denied all 14 offences which took place on dates between May 1999 and November 2002.However, he had been in contact with his barrister, Mr John Gruffydd, by fax and made admissions in connection with 11 of the 14 charges he faced.Two of allegations - of perverting the course of justice in a speeding case and fraudulent trading with VIP Connections Ltd - are expected to lie on file

5-year-old boy is in a critical but stable condition at Málaga's Maternity Hospital after a savage attack by his family's pet Rottweiler in the garden of the family home on the La Alqueria residential estate in Alhaurín de la Torre. The toddler suffered serious injuries to his face, legs and back when he was attacked by the family pet, which may have been accompanied by a second dog, at around 9.45pm last Saturday evening. His life was saved by the prompt reaction of his father who pulled him free then rushed him to hospital. The Rottweiler was removed to a stray dog facility for tests while the boy's parents, who are not Spanish, have been ordered to provide proof that they have the necessary paperwork to keep dangerous animals of this type.

63-year-old English man whose charred corpse was found on the outskirts of Chrivel (Almería) last Saturday evening, may have set fire to himself intentionally as an empty 8-litre can of petrol was found near his body. A loud explosion shortly before 6pm alerted locals, who called in the emergency services. The totally-incinerated body was found after the resulting flames had been extinguished. No significant damage was caused to the surrounding scrub and woodland. A distinctive tattoo on the dead man's back was the key to identifying him

A gang who amassed 150,000 euros through violent crime have been arrested in Torrevieja .These criminals attacked their victims across a wide range , from Valencia to Murcia , with more than 20 violent thefts .Four of the men are from south America and one is a Spaniard .Their modus operandi was to rabbit chop their victims on the back of the neck as they were taking money from cash machines .One of their victims was relieved of 21,000 euros as he left a bank in Alicante .They have been charged with robbery and grievous bodily harm .

Builder Gary Dunne, 22, was attacked and stabbed to death in the street in the popular resort of Benalmadena on March 2, 2006, for no apparent reason.
Yesterday, a Spanish jury found 24-year-old Victor Navas guilty of homicide.
But they accepted the killer’s drug problem as an extenuating factor in the case.
During the four-day trial at Malaga provincial criminal court, Navas admitted stabbing Mr Dunne, who had lived with his parents at Benalmadena for four years.
But he said he could not remember doing so because that night he had consumed cocaine, designer drugs, hashish and alcohol.He also told the nine-man jury he had been a drug addict since the age of 13.When the trial started, the state prosecutor demanded Navas should be jailed for 14 years for homicide.But following his statement about his drug problem, the prosecutor reached agreement with the defence to lower his demand to nine years’ imprisonment because of temporary diminished responsibility.Returning their verdict of guilty to homicide yesterday, the jury foreman said they accepted Navas’s drug addiction was an extenuating circumstance.
The presiding judge will release a written sentence within the next two weeks.
Mr Dunne’s parents Lesley and Stephen are also fighting a long-standing battle against the Spanish authorities to bring their son’s body home.For two years, they have been prevented from bringing his body back to Merseyside for burial.
The Spanish authorities claim that for hygiene reasons, Mr Dunne must be cremated. They would then allow his ashes to be taken home.He remains in a concrete box in the resort of Benalmadena

Corruption case on Mallorca with two people arrested for issuing fake facturas in favour of the Unió Mallorquina party spokesman. One of those arrested is the manager of a real estate company with interests in Spain, Moldavia, Luxembourg, Hungary and France.