Sixteen arrests as Spain's Civil Guard uncover network which trafficked in protected species

Egg theft of protected birds of prey has been linked to a centre which runs the recovery programme for the Spanish Imperial Eagle and swindled subsidies from the Junta de AndalucíaA Spanish Imperial Eagle. Photo – Antonio Carrasco/Wikipedia


After the news on Wednesday of a Civil Guard investigation in Sevilla into a network trafficking in protected birds of prey, it’s now been confirmed that the network has been disbanded and was much more extensive than originally reported. Officers have rescued 101 birds alive and another 11 which were found dead.

Sixteen people have been arrested after 21 property searches in nine Spanish provinces.

Amongst those in custody are the director and several members of staff from the centre in Sevilla which manages the Junta de Andalucía’s recovery programme for the Spanish Imperial Eagle. A captain from Seprona, the Civil Guard nature protection unit, told EFE that the suspects there were involved in a fraud which has been ongoing for the past 9 years by inflating figures about the number of chicks born at the centre in order to retain their regional government subsidy.

Civil Guard investigators have discovered that they in fact came from eggs which were stolen from nests in the wild, while small chicks were also taken alive.

Captain José Manuel Vivas said the centre was not the successful scientific project it was presented as and spoke of the Junta de Andalucía as a victim in the case.

The Civil Guard said the network extends far beyond the Sevilla centre and believe more than 150 people could be linked to the organised theft of eggs and chicks for the illegal sale of protected birds of prey. It’s understood that some chicks were sold for as much as 18,000 €.

 

A LIVERPOOL man was today being held by Spanish police after more than £500,000 of cannabis was allegedly found stashed in his car.

Anthony Kelly, 49, appeared in court in the northern city of Santander yesterday accused of planning to import the drugs to the UK.

Kelly was due to board a Plymouth-bound ferry just hours after he was arrested by Spanish drug squad detectives on Wednesday June 15.

The country’s National Police allegedly recovered 171kg of cannabis, worth £513,000 had it been sold on the street.

Kelly was held after he returned to his Santander hotel in a taxi in the early hours of Monday morning.

After searching his Vauxhall Astra, which was parked outside the hotel, officers from Madrid’s specialist organised crime unit allegedly discovered a haul of 681 packages hidden in secret compartments, including a "false floor".

Kelly was booked on a car ferry leaving Santander hours later for Plymouth.

He was today being held on remand following a behind-closed-doors appearance before an investigating judge in the Atlantic port city.

A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman said: "We are aware of the arrest of a British national in Spain on June 15 and consular assistance is currently being provided."

Estíbaliz Carranza was arrested in northern Italy after two chopped up bodies were found in the cellar of the ice cream parlour she ran in Vienna

A court in Trieste decided on Monday to extradite to Austria the Spanish woman, Estíbaliz Carranza Goidsargi, who was arrested in northern Italy earlier this month after two bodies were found in the cellars of the ice cream parlour she runs in Vienna.

The chopped up bodies were found by workmen on June 6 and have been identified as the accused’s ex husband and a former boyfriend.

Carranza told police after she was traced to Italy after the find that she had shot her ex husband in the back in 2008 and had killed her Austrian boyfriend in November last year.

She said that on both occasions, she used an electric saw to chop up the body and disposed of the remains in containers which were found filled with cement in the cellar.

It’s understood that extradition proceedings in Italy must be completed within a maximum of 45 days.

Man arrested for international Internet fraud in Chiclana

Romanian man, named as A.L.L., has been arrested in Chiclana on suspicion of fraudulent online sales of more than 400,000 € in at least 7 countries. He is understood to have a previous record for similar crimes.

His victims included residents of the UK, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Holland, who, in some cases, paid over sums of more than 5,000 € for non-existent goods, and transferred the money into bank accounts he had set up under false identities at a number of branches across Andalucía. EFE reports that the suspect used passports which had either been stolen or lost in their country of issue to set up the accounts, and never used his own identity.

Detectives began investigations in ‘Operation Bandit’ after they discovered that an unknown fraudster had recently set up a fraudulent account in Córdoba at the beginning of the year.

Although his identity was still unknown at this stage, it was later discovered that he planned to visit a bank in Chiclana and police were waiting there when he arrived at the branch to withdraw a large amount of money with the fake passport he had used to set up the account.

EFE indicates that the police are now trying to locate the victims of his online fraud.

 

Injured gangster flees abroad in kill threats linked to 'Fat' Freddie

THIS is the man shot and threatened by criminals linked to 'Fat' Freddie Thompson -- and now forced to flee the country.

Crumlin man Karl Fay (20) from Lismore Drive was set up by his own associates and almost murdered after being shot in a park in leafy Milltown, south Dublin, on the evening of April 7 last.

After being targeted in the incident, the young criminal stumbled into the well-known Dropping Well pub covered in blood and fell on the floor in front of dozens of shocked customers.

Fay has made a full recovery after spending weeks being treated in hospital but has now decided to flee Dublin, the Herald can reveal.

Sources have revealed that on the night that he was shot, Fay was driven to the park in Milltown on the back of a motorbike by a middle-aged criminal from the Crumlin area.

It is understood that Fay trusted the veteran gangster -- who has a number of serious convictions and whose sons are heavily involved in gangland crime. They are linked to the local crime gang in the area that is headed by 'Fat' Freddie Thompson.

When Fay was dropped off at the park, he was ambushed in broad daylight on a sunny evening and shot with a small handgun, possibly a .22 calibre pistol.

Sources believe that Fay knows the identity of his attackers but has refused to tell gardai who they are.

Despite this, a number of arrests have been made in the case and sources believe that those responsible for targeting Fay will do so again.

"There is some indication that Karl Fay might return home in the next few weeks and relocate away from Crumlin to elsewhere in Ireland but the unfortunate truth is that this young man will not be safe wherever he is.

"The people that want to get him are very serious individuals and they will stop at nothing," a source explained.

The most likely motive for the gun attack is that Fay was trying to "move away" from some of his associates who have links to 'Fat' Freddie Thompson's drugs organisation.

Fay and an older associate of his had been previously charged with the July 2008 murder of a man in Crumlin who died after being beaten with a snooker cue and a golf club.

However, the murder trial collapsed at the Central Criminal Court in October, 2009, after a 12-year-old key witness said he was unable to identify the killers.

In a statement previously read in court by the prosecution, the boy had told gardai he recognised one of the two men he saw that night.

The case against Fay and the other man was based on the eyewitness evidence of three young brothers and during the trial the boy's mother had denied during legal argument that the family were offered a €20,000 bribe not to give evidence.

She made this denial because earlier in the trial, a garda had given evidence that an anonymous caller claimed the family had been offered a bribe by the family of Karl Fay.

A month after the prosecution entered a nolle prosequi in the murder case, Fay was acquitted of obstructing a garda from carrying out a drug search.

Last July, Fay was jailed for five months, banned from driving for six years and fined €1,500 after being caught driving without insurance on dozens of occasions.

The court heard that Fay had a large number of previous convictions, including 13 for no insurance, 15 for no driving licence and eight for dangerous driving.

 

Spain extradites suspect in Russia fatal club fire

Russia says Spain has extradited an official of a Siberian nightclub where a fire killed 156 people in 2009.
The General Prosecutor's office said Konstantin Mrykhin was sent to Russia Thursday. He was taken into custody in Barcelona last August.

Mrykhin was commercial director of a nightclub in the city of Perm which caught fire in December 2009 while packed with patrons.

The fire spread quickly through a plastic ceiling hung with decorative branches as desperate revelers tried to escape through a single door.

Mrykhin is charged with offering unsafe services causing the death of multiple people, for which he could face a sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted.

 

Arrested a man for possession of 55 vehicles from two rental companies

The National Police in Malaga have arrested a 56-year 55 vehicles have been appropriate for two car rental companies, one located in Malaga, and the other in Ceuta , which later sold to bona fide purchasers were unaware of the illicit origin.

In particular, he is accused of the crimes of misappropriation and fraud , exceeding the value of the prejudice of 400,000 euros. So far we have recovered 35 cars, which had already been sold to buyers and businesses buying and selling used cars and second hand, which already have been tapped.

The investigation was initiated following the complaint lodged by the head of a company car hire in Malaga for the misappropriation of his company's 33 vehicles, as reported by the National Police in a statement.

In just 12 days, the researchers located the alleged offender , who had fled to Morocco to avoid judicial action. Apparently, he had also committed other similar frauds, taking advantage of his position in an official dealer located in the Campo de Gibraltar.

Thus, the operation has been developed jointly by members of the Economic Crime Groups Ceuta and Málaga Fraud Group, which has resulted in the arrest of the suspect on his return to Spain.

 

Two robbers armed with an AK-47 assault rifle have stolen approximately 100,000 € from a Carrefour hypermarket in Sevilla.

The two hooded men arrived at the store in the centre of Dos Hermanas at 1,30pm on Monday, and fired off a round from the gun as a warning. They managed to tie up two security guards who were carrying the store’s weekend takings to an armed van outside the store and then make their escape with two sacks of money.

Closed circuit TV cameras recorded how they made their escape in a top of the range Audi car.

On their arrival at the scene police recovered several bullets from the Kalashnikov rifle

French bust has also been linked to two millionaire crime brothers from Glasgow, now based in Marbella. The pair, in their mid-30s, were property developer s

COPS battling to smash the empire of Scotland's top mobster have arrested a trucking boss linked to the biggest cocaine bust in French history.
Haulage firm chief Charles McAughey's home was one of 11 targeted last week in synchronised raids aimed at lieutenants of drug-smuggling kingpin Jamie "Iceman" Stevenson.
The Sunday Mail revealed in 2009 that French police had found nearly threequarters of a ton of cocaine in the back of a lorry owned by McAughey.
The vehicle was registered to the 51-year-old, who runs haulage company Kirimar Plant. He employed the two Glaswegian men arrested in the bust in the city of Montpellier, west of Marseilles.
Stunned French cops found 684 kilos of pure cocaine, worth an estimated £31million, hidden among cash registers and coffee in the back of the truck. We revealed at the time that the lorry had been scheduled to travel to London, then on to Glasgow.
Stevenson, 46, now serving 10 years for money-laundering, smuggled drugs into Scotland using his own lorries.
He ploughed cash into legitimate haulage firms, who he then used to flood the nation with cocaine and heroin.
McAughey's £1.5million home in Bothwell, Lanarkshire, was among those raided on Tuesday after a year-long investigation by the elite Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. The clampdown, codenamed Operation Chiron, was targeted at drugs and proceeds of crime.
Eight other men, aged between 39 and 49, were arrested in the raids.
Officers seized around £40,000 in cash, 21 laptops and 60 mobile phones. Other items, including jewellery, watches, shoes and paintings, were also confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
A scdea spokeswoman said: "Nine men arrested will be reported to the procurator fiscal for offences under the Proceeds of Crime Act and money laundering."
Kirimar Plant's yard on Uddingston's Greenelms Industrial Estate was also raided last Tuesday. McAughey appears to have re-branded the firm as Kinetic Heavy Haulage.
We spoke to McAughey at his portacabin office to ask about his arrest. He said: "I don't think it would be appropriate to comment."
McAughey is also a director of the Artists Studio in Bath Street, Glasgow, and the Bothwell Partnership - a firm who organise corporate events - with his partner Alison Donnell, 56.
It's understood a number of paintings were seized in the raid on his house, yards from the home of Rangers and Scotland midfielder Lee McCulloch.
The Artists Studio closed last month and was deserted yesterday. A worker at another business in the building said: "One minute the studio seemed to be open, the next it was an empty shell."
The two men arrested in the Montpellier truck bust are awaiting trial in Marseilles, where 1971 drug thriller The French Connection was filmed.
One of the suspects has been named as James Davidson, a father of two from Yoker, Glasgow. His wife Patricia has travelled to France several times to visit him.
A family friend said: "The last two years have been nightmare for Jim's family.
"He swears he knew nothing about the drugs and only decided to go along with the other driver at the last minute to help him out.
"Jim agreed to be second driver so the guy could get back for his daughter's birthday."
The Foreign Office said the two arrested men, both in their 50s, had been offered consular assistance.
Police in Marseilles said the suspects were still "under investigation" and the interior ministry said the investigation was "ongoing".
The French bust has also been linked to two mi l lionaire crime brothers from Glasgow, now based in Marbella. The pair, in their mid-30s, were property developer s but started working for cocaine baron Stephen Docherty in the mid-90s.
They are known simply as "The Brothers" in the underworld. They took over Docherty's operation after he killed himself.
A source told us that the SCDEA had "nothing to do" with the cocaine seizure in France.
French customs officers stopped the truck when it passed through a scanner and didn't match specifications.
Mobster who flooded Scotland with truckloads of misery
Jamie Stevenson became Scotland's biggest ever drugs smuggler after the murder of one-time friend and criminal ally Tony McGovern.
The Iceman was prime suspect for the gangland assassination.
Within a few years of McGovern's death, Stevenson had set up a worldwide trafficking operation.
He recruited an army of lorry drivers to carry drugs and guns, hidden among legal cargos, into Scotland and Ireland from across Europe.
Trucker Robert McDowall, 54, turned supergrass after he was jailed for smuggling £6million of Stevenson's heroin into Scotland. In prison interviews, he told detectives how he ferried drugs inside loads of flowers from markets in Rijnsburg, Holland.
McDowall insists he had to turn informer because Stevenson believed he was behind the operation being busted and had taken out a £10,000 contract on his life.
He said: "I messed up. I'll be paying the price for the rest of my days."

 

Spanish police website hit by cyber attack-report

Access to the website of Spain's national police force was blocked for over an hour late on Saturday in a reprisal attack by the Anonymous hackers group, El Mundo said on its website on Sunday.

El Mundo said the group had warned police in a statement it planned to disable the website at some time on Saturday. The website was down for at least an hour from 2130 GMT, the paper said.

A spokesman for the Spanish police said access to the website www.policia.es was blocked at 2 a.m. on Sunday, but said police were still studying the reason for this.

"A website can collapse if too many people try to access it at once. I cannot confirm the link with the Anonymous group," the spokesman said.

Spanish police arrested three suspected members of the group on Friday on charges of cyber attacks against targets including the websites of Sony Corp (6758.T), governments, businesses and banks -- but not the massive hacking of PlayStation gamers. [ID:nLDE7591YJ]

Anonymous responded by threatening to retaliate for the arrests: "We are Legion, so EXPECT US," the group said on its official Twitter feed.

Access was also temporarily blocked to the websites of Spain's state employment agencies INEM and SEPE, El Mundo said, but cited the Labour Ministry as saying this was due to maintenance problems and not related to a cyber-attack.

Anonymous is a loose grouping of activists who frequently try to shut down the websites of businesses and other organisations that it opposes.

Members cripple websites by overwhelming them with traffic in what is commonly known as "denial of service" attacks.

The group has attacked Turkish government websites in a protest against Internet censorship. [ID:nLDE75825A]


Jeff Moss, a self-described computer hacker and member of the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Committee, said he believed that attack was conducted on behalf of a nation state looking to either steal sensitive information about key IMF strategies or embarrass the organisation to undermine its clout.

 

Hookers and pimps are fleecing boozed-up Brits and Marbella remains a bolthole for UK villains on the run.

Our man bought a gram of cocaine in a plush waterfront bar in mega-rich Puerto Banus, on the outskirts of Marbella, in a daylight deal.

Taking e60 (£53) for the powder the dealer, Craig from Newcastle, said: “It’s about 60% pure and is knock-out gear.
“Some Venezuelans have brought a load over for the season.”

He added: “If you’re out later I’ll have some MDMA, the Spaniards love it.”

There’s another drugs craze sweeping the resort – steroids.

Muscle-bound posers are snapping up human growth hormones and gangs are cashing in on the demand by smuggling them to and from the UK.

Seven men living in Marbella were “leading members” of a crew of 26 arrested last month with 10,000 phials.

Just a stone’s throw from the harbour and its designer shops and billionaires’ yachts is a road the Spaniards call Calle del Infierno – Hell Street.

It is here Brits are fleeced by the vice girls. Russian, Hungarian, Ghanaian, Brazilian and Romanian sex workers line the street.

Anita, from Budapest, said: “For e150, I show you good sex time.

“You are English? I love the English, they are favourite customers.”

They also love money. In Sinatra’s bar on the seedy strip, Tony, from Southampton, told how a Russian street prostitute he slept with swiped e200 (£176) from his back pocket.

He said: “Apparently it’s happening a lot because there’s so many tourists.”

A Spanish policeman later told us: “The prostitutes will steal your money, stay away.”

Violent pimps are always close at hand. We saw one English lad try to leave a hooker and just escape being pummelled by two heavies.

Marbella is in the grip of organised crime. Brit gangs with members from Liverpool, Manchester, London and Newcastle are here.

So is an Irish heavy mob. But Eastern Europeans hold the biggest sway.

One underworld source said: “The Russians and Albanians are the ones to watch. They run most of the hookers and most of the clubs. Extortion is a big money maker but also drugs.

“The big hitters jumped ship for a while because Marbella died a bit of a death. But now it’s booming again.

“So a lot of the villains are back to make their millions.” Many of the Brit crooks are into protection rackets and extortion scams.

A Serious Organised Crime Agency source said: “One of the main rackets for Brits now is boiler room fraud.

“Criminals are pressing vulnerable businessmen into ploughing savings into shares that don’t exist. It’s costing people tens of thousands of pounds.”

Marbella is still a bolthole for ex-pat criminals. Last month suspected drug baron James Dempsey, 33, from Essex,was arrested over an alleged conspiracy to flood the UK with cocaine.

Other suspects on the run here include Kevin Thomas Parle, wanted over a fatal 2004 shooting in Liverpool.

arrested a man who robbed a petrol station, a tobacconist and a pharmacy the same day was released from Albolote Prison, in Granada

 arrested a man who robbed a petrol station, a tobacconist and a pharmacy the same day was released from Albolote Prison, in Granada. The 30-year-old had an extensive record for similar crimes.

Just hours after he was released, he held-up a petrol station, threatening the cashier with a gun, and stole €230 from the till.

He then went to a tobacconist nearby where he threatened the female staff with a screwdriver, demanding money which they refused to hand over.

Next, he headed to a pharmacy, screwdriver still in hand, threatening the pharmacist and stealing €400 and a pack of tranquilizers.

14 people have been arrested today, Friday, in a joint operation against international drug-trafficking carried out by the UDYCO unit of the National Police and the Guardia Civil.

135 kilos of cocaine and 490,000 € in cash was recovered with dozens of mobile phones.

The police say that the group was acting between Madrid and Valencia on an international scale, and the group introduced, transported, stored and distributed the drugs across borders. A simultaneous search has been held in 14 homes in Madrid and Valencia.

The break for the police came in Parla, Madrid last December when a warehouse carrying 500 kilos of cocaine was found and where three initial arrests were made and several vehicles were impounded.

Secret compartments were found in some of the cars, and in some cases were only reached by dismantling the seats and other elements of the vehicle.

The Spanish police said Friday that they had arrested three suspected computer hackers in connection with recent cyberattacks on Sony’s PlayStation Network

The Spanish police said Friday that they had arrested three suspected computer hackers in connection with recent cyberattacks on Sony’s PlayStation Network as well as corporate and government Web sites around the world.

The arrests have dismantled the local leadership of the shadowy international network of computer hackers known as Anonymous, which has claimed responsibility for a wide variety of attacks, the National Police said in a statement.

According to the statement, Anonymous is made up of people from various countries organized into cells that share common goals. The activists operate anonymously, but in a coordinated fashion.

One of the “hacktivist” detainees, a 31-year-old man, was arrested in the southern city of Almería sometime after May 18, the police said. He had a computer server in his apartment in the northern port city of Gijón, from which the group attacked the Web sites of the Sony PlayStation online gaming store.

The same computer was also employed in coordinated cyber-attacks against two Spanish banks, BBVA and Bankia, the Italian energy company Enel, as well as government sites in Spain, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand, the police said.

The police opened their investigation last October, after hackers overwhelmed the Spanish Ministry of Culture’s Web site to protest Spanish legislation increasing punishments for illegal downloads.

The two other suspects were arrested in Barcelona and Valencia. The statement did not make clear the timing of those arrests.

It was not immediately clear if the group had been the sole, or even the main, perpetrator of the recent attacks on Sony. About a dozen Sony Web sites and services around the world have been hacked, with the biggest breaches forcing the Tokyo-based company to shut down its popular PlayStation Network for a month beginning in April.

The Japanese company has acknowledged that hackers compromised personal data for tens of millions of user accounts. Earlier this month, a separate hacker collective called Lulz Security said it had breached a Sony Pictures site and released vital source codes.

Sony has estimated that the hacker attacks will cost it at least 14 billion yen, or $173 million, in damages, including information technology spending, legal costs, lower sales and free offers to lure back customers.

Mami Imada, a Sony spokeswoman in Tokyo, said she had no information on the arrests and declined to comment.

The police said that they had analyzed more than 2 million lines of chat logs since October, as well as Web pages used by the group to identify the leadership in Spain “with the capacity to make decisions and direct attacks.”

Anonymous members made use of a computer program called LOIC to crash Web sites by flooding them with denial of service attacks, the police said.

Among recent attacks, the hackers also brought down the site of the Spanish National Electoral Commission last month before regional and municipal elections. It was that attack, on May 18, that led to the arrest in Almería.

The movement against the anti-piracy law has been closely linked to the broader youth-led political movement that have occupied Puerta del Sol in Madrid and other city squares since May 15.

These protests have called for a complete overhaul of Spain’s political system — and the laws targeting illegal downloading.

Salford bank robbers who fled to Spain after escaping through Arndale Centre

Two Salford bank robbers have been jailed for their roles in a string of terrifying armed bank raids.

Lee Tansey and Rickton Henry were part of a gang which carried out robberies at three banks and took cash totalling nearly £500,000.

The raids, caught on CCTV, included one in which a terrified delivery driver was threatened with a machete and a hammer. In one raid Tansey cut himself on glass as he smashed his way in and was seen trying to clean blood from the bank floor in an apparent attempt to remove his DNA.

After another robbery the gang escaped after a high-speed car chase which ended at the Arndale centre in Manchester city centre.

Tansey and Henry went on the run to Spain after the chase but were captured and sent back to face justice.

Tansey, 33, pleaded guilty to three armed bank robberies. He was jailed for 11 years. Henry, 31, admitted one count of armed robbery and was jailed for eight years, eight months.

Both men were brought to justice as part of Project Gulf, a major crackdown on Greater Manchester's criminal underworld.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency worked alongside police forces and Spanish authorities to trace and arrest the pair.

Project Gulf was a successful pilot scheme for the new National Crime Agency, which was launched by Home Secretary Theresa May today.



Tansey, of Pegwell Drive, Salford, admitted offences relating to raids on Lloyds TSB branches in Leeds and Darwen, Lancashire, along with a raid on a branch of HSBC in Huddersfield.

Henry, of Merridge Walk, Salford, was linked to the Huddersfield raid. All three date back to 2008 and 2009.

Graphic CCTV footage of the Darwen raid in June 2008 shows Tansey smashing through the glass door shortly after the bank had closed to the public.

He injured himself on a piece of glass on the door.

The video shows Tansey, with blood soaking through the arm of his hooded top, removing pieces of glass from the door and also spraying a fluid on the floor, in an apparent attempt to remove DNA evidence from the scene.

In the meantime his fellow gang members threatened staff with a crowbar and sledgehammer and demanded cash from the safe. They escaped with nearly £43,000.

In the robbery at the Lloyds TSB bank in Elland, Leeds, on 18 June 2009 a terrified delivery driver was threatened with a hammer and machete.

CCTV video shows the security guard apparently fighting back at one stage before he is forced into a corner by two armed robbers. The gang got away with around £150,000.

And in a raid on the HSBC in Huddersfield just eight days later on 26 June 2009, a bank worker was attacked by the gang as they stole more than £306,000.

This time police were able to trail the gang and Greater Manchester Police were called later the same day to intercept a Vauxhall Combi van which resulted in a high speed chase through Manchester, also captured on video by the pursuing police car.

The chase ended at the Arndale shopping centre in Manchester when the gang parked in the multistorey car park and escaped on foot. Their van was found to contain a sledgehammer, a crowbar and a machete.

When he was later arrested Henry admitted in police interview that he was driving the van at the time.

Other members of the gang remain are still being hunted by police.

Det Insp Warren Stevenson, of West Yorkshire Police’s Crime Division, said: “These men, armed with potentially lethal weapons, forced their way into banks and stole cash for their own benefits. They showed no concern for the workers who were trying to go about their business when they threatened them with violence if they didn’t hand over cash.”

Matt Burton, from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, added: “Tansey and Henry were targeted as part of a multi-agency crackdown on North west organised crime. They were arrested during joint operations with the Spanish authorities. Our international reach should leave other criminals in no doubt that life on the run will be uncomfortable, insecure and short lived.”

Both men were jailed at Bradford crown court.

 

British woman was beaten up by masked robbers in Spain and held hostage for seven hours as they stole £270,000 of gold from the jewellers where she works.

The gang had broken into her home close to Alfaz del Pi outside Benidorm and waited for the 61 year old to return from work.

They pushed her and hit her around the face and frightened her into handing over the alarm code and keys to the business.

One of the men then stood guard over her while three accomplices made several trips to the shop to steal the gold.


Ordeal: The British woman, who has lived in Spain for many years, was held captive for seven hours. She is now recovering in a town near Benidorm, pictured

The men who all wore balaclavas when they attacked the woman fled more than seven hours later after warning their victim not to call police.

An unnamed neighbour told a local paper: 'She's in an awful state.

'Her upper lip is badly bruised from blows she's received.'

Last night she was being comforted by her employers. She did not need hospital treatment.

The robbers are thought to have targeted their victim after putting the jewellers under surveillance and seeing she had keys.

They broke into her flat just a short walk from the shop by gaining access to an empty apartment next to hers while she was out at work and smashing a hole through the wall to reach her property.

The robbery took place on Monday night. But by 10am the following day four suspects, a 36-year-old Spaniard and three Romanians aged 25, 27, and 33, were arrested in Madrid after a national police alert was put out.

Officers say all the gold taken in the robbery, valued at nearly £270,000, was recovered from one of two cars the men were travelling in.

The four are also being questioned over an earlier robbery in Gandia near the eastern Spanish city of Valencia.

A spokesman for the Civil Guard in Alicante said: 'The British victim was taken hostage in her own home around 9.15pm on Monday when she came home from work.

'Four men wearing balaclavas were waiting for her after breaking into an empty flat next to hers and making a hole in the wall to access her apartment.

'They intimidated her by pushing her and we believe she was also slapped around the face.

'They forced her into handing over the keys to the jewellers and the code to disable the alarm.

'One of the men then stayed with her while the other three made a series of trips to the jewellers to steal valuables.

'The man watching her over disappeared around 4am so she her ordeal lasted for around seven hours.

'Their victim is obviously very traumatised although she didn't need hospital treatment.'

The spokesman added: 'This gang was obviously very professional.

'We believe they identified her as someone with keys to the jewellers after watching the shop and then proceeded to build up a picture of her life and movements.

'The fact they were prepared to go to the lengths they did to carry out this robbery suggests they would have been prepared to use any means and any violence necessary to achieve their aims.'

The robbery victim is thought to have moved to Spain several years ago.

She lives alone and speaks perfect Spanish. It is not known where in Britain she is originally from.

Gang of cocaine smugglers smashed on Spanish islands

Seven people have been arrested in Baleares and Canarias in a Civil Guard operation which has uncovered a drugs network which smuggled cocaine in by sea from Venezuela and hid the drugs off the coast for later collection.

There were three arrests on Tenerife and four on Mallorca. Five of the group are Spanish, who worked with a man from Venezuela and another from Russia.

The Civil Guard said in a press release on Monday that the organisation bought the boats they used for the trips in South America and sailed to the Spanish coast with their illegal cargo. Once there, the cocaine bales were unloaded and either hidden on the seabed or in cliffs where access by land was difficult.

The boats, some of them valued at more than 300,000 €, were then sunk.

Officers who had the group under surveillance on the Canary Islands recovered eight bales containing a total 9 kilos of cocaine.

It’s understood the gang laundered the proceeds from their drugs sales through real estate businesses on Mallorca.

 

accused of shooting the boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend in Dénia with a sub-machine gun.

The National Police have arrested a 47 year old Frenchman, named with the initials A.L. who is accused of shooting the boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend in Dénia with a sub-machine gun. The gun was type UZI with a silence and three cartridges with a total of 90 bullets.

The aggressor broke into the home of his ex. In the La Alhambra Urbanisation, just after midnight on Tuesday night, and calmly shot her new boyfriend repeatedly.

The woman, named as 31 year old A.M., also suffered stab wounds, with serious cuts to a hand and head injuries, and has been admitted to the Marina Alta hospital in Dénia in a serious condition. Her two daughters witnessed the attack on their mother, according to Dénia Town Hall,
Forenisc police inspect the bullet casings - EFE

although that has not been confirmed.

The dead man is reported to be a 32 year old Spaniard.

The aggressor has been taken to the local police cells in Dénia where he has been questioned and is now with the National Police who have taken over the case. The woman had placed a denuncia against the attacker for ill-treatment and there was a distancing order in place

Civil Guard officer in Ceuta is among eight accused of an organization supposedly devoted to bringing hashish into Spain from Morocco through the Algeciras coast.

Civil Guard officer in Ceuta is among eight accused of an organization supposedly devoted to bringing hashish into Spain from Morocco through the Algeciras coast.

Algeciras section of the Provincial Court judge was going to yesterday, but was finally postponed until Sept. 21 because the court noted that participated in an arrest warrant dated November 11, 1999. Thus, the composition of the judges changed to respect the highest court that says that trainers can not judge.

Is the second postponement of a procedure that dates back to 1999 and whose research stemmed from the UDYCO the National Police in Ceuta, but also participated in Algeciras.

May 24 was the first date set, but not held by the absence of BBB, which yesterday did not attend. The prosecution asked the 8 defendants 4 years and 6 months in prison for a crime against public health. Police investigations show that this group is coordinated to bring, sell and distribute the drug and attempted to carry out various sizes.

The disruption came on November 8, 1999 when police intervened Pelayo near a cache of 578 kilos of hashish were in 22 packages. Three of the defendants came into the boat, two had to collect the substance and the other three were in charge of other tasks. That night they hid and hid the drug. The prosecution says the agent and which put in place the ships with which suspected drug traffickers were carrying the drug transport. Cree was aware of their illicit use.

One of the defense requested the annulment of several actions in finding that it violated Article 18.3 of the Constitution, referring to the secrecy of communications. He says that they were not sufficiently motivated. The prosecutor argued the opposite and said that the investigation met the requirements set.

The killer who beheaded a British grandmother in Tenerife has been moved to a jail after attacking a nurse in a psychiatric unit.

Deyan Deyanov, 28, was being held in a hospital on the Spanish island after the killing of Jennifer Mills-Westley, 60.

He lashed out at a nurse in his cell while two armed guards were outside.

The nurse was not seriously hurt and it is understood Deyanov had been heavily-sedated and was strapped to a bed.

Bulgarian Deyanov, a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of drug use, is charged with murder following his decapitation of Mrs Mills-Westley with a knife in a shop last month, after which he carried her head into the street.

The move to jail follows rumours last week that Deyanov had escaped from the hospital, although the authorities deny that he had made any such attempt.

Since his detention at the psychiatric ward the depth of his mania has been revealed. 

He has a history of mental illness and drug use and once threatened to kill his own six-year-old child with a knife.

Deyanov made the chilling threat to his then-girlfriend Nadia Milanova, who he told to choose between herself and the child.

Miss Milanova, 28, a cruise ship worker, said she feels sorry for the family of Jennifer Mills-Westley, 60, who was murdered in Spain, but that she feared it could have been her instead.

Miss Milanova, mother to Deyanov's child, said that the use of hard drugs had destroyed him, changing him from a loving boyfriend to a monster who once threatened to throw her from a balcony.

Miss Milanova's mother, who now helps to care for the six-year-old child in Ruse, Deyanov’s home town in Bulgaria, revealed the depth of his mania.


Elena Stavrakova, 64, said that he threatened her daughter and grandchild with a knife, saying: 'You choose who dies – you or the baby.'

Deyanov's own family have also slammed the maniac who carried out the sickening attack in the resort of Los Cristianos on May 13.

His brother Elin, 34, said Deyanov had destroyed his already-splintering family, stealing from them and leaving his parents destitute.

Elin said that when his father was declared bankrupt and his mother had been committed to an asylum, Deyanov sold their possessions for drug money and then just disappeared.

'It’s a terrible thing this woman is dead but I can’t help feeling glad that he will be locked up for the rest of his life,' said Elin.

Deyanov was on bail for smashing a security guard in the face with a rock when he attacked Mrs Mills-Westley, stabbing her 14 times and decapitating her.

Before that, he was released from a mental health hospital in the UK after he was sectioned last summer.

He was visiting relatives when he was admitted to the Glan Clwyd Hospital's Ablett Psychiatric Unit in North Wales with concerned relatives having told authorities about his drug-taking and deteriorating behaviour.

But he was released in October last year after being monitored constantly.

Four British tourists arrested for stealing in their Magaluf hotel

Officers investigating robberies reported from two rooms in a hotel in Magaluf recovered the stolen items on Wednesday and arrested four suspects.

They are named by EFE as Mohammad A., Riazul C., Rubel A. and Afsar H., four British teenagers who were guests at the hotel.

Officers recovered more than 1,000 € in cash, 387 pounds, 6 mobile phones, six pairs of sunglasses, four watches, three bracelets and a camera amongst other items.

 

man has been arrested in Orihuela after raping an 11 year old girl and leaving her pregnant

man has been arrested in Orihuela after raping an 11 year old girl and leaving her pregnant. The welfare services have taken over the care of the girl who is to continue with her pregnancy, and now remains in a care centre.

The Guardia Civil arrested the 39 year old Ecuadorian man for his alleged relationship with the child who is expected to give birth next month. When Social Services found out about the case she was already six months pregnant.

The authorities are reported to be searching for a second man for his involvement in the same crime, which happened in November 2010.

‘La Verdad’ newspaper reports that the child was 11 when raped and currently is in good health. Given that there is no danger to her life and the pregnancy is so advanced, the birth will go ahead.

It’s reported that the rapist had a romantic relationship with the child’s mother. The child’s father was the first suspect in the case, but he was ruled out as he was in prison at the time of the rape after breaking a distancing order from his wife.

14 arrested in drug operation which sent hashish from Spain to France

Guardia Civil have made 14 arrests today, Friday, in Málaga, the Campo de Gibraltar, Almería and Murcia, as they broke up a gang of drug traffickers who sent hashish to Lyon in France hidden inside tetrabriks. The operation was codenamed ‘Racimo’.

The organisation passed the drugs on under the system known as ‘go fast router’ which consisted in distributing the drugs quickly across France in stolen vehicles.

The 14 arrested are of Spanish, French, Italian and Algerian nationality, and other eight people have also been indicted in the operation which started last August.

Nine searches have been carried out, six in Almería and three in Algeciras, in which 790 kilos of the drug was siezed along with assets valued at more than three million €.

 

17 people arrested in Ceuta, Seville and Algeciras (Cádiz)

as part of a network dedicated to narcotics trafficking operating in the Strait of Gibraltar between the ports of Ceuta and Algeciras (Cádiz) stored the drug in three houses of the city of Ceuta.

According to Efe reported sources close to the investigation, the drug was introduced from Morocco and then hid in three dwellings on the outskirts of Ceuta in the slums of the campus, axes and Almadraba for subsequent transfer to the mainland.

The Civil Guard has stated that in addition to the 17 detainees have yet to arrest three other people who are on search and seizure after managed to escape on the records kept in homes.

The investigation began last February in "Operation Package" to dismantle an organization dedicated to trafficking in cannabis in this area, as reported by the head of the Guardia Civil in a note.

The end result of "Operation Package" has led to the arrest of 17 persons, the intervention of 19,775 euros, 83,570 grams of hashish, 4.8 grams of cocaine, marijuana plants 4, 6 vehicles , 15 mobile phones 3 laptops, 2 precision scales, 1 sealing machine and 3 packages of vacuum-packed bags.

The 17 detainees have been brought to justice for alleged crimes against public health.