Aeromexico pilot held in Madrid on suspicion of smuggling cocaine

A Mexican airline co-pilot is under arrest in Spain on suspicion of attempting to smuggle 92 pounds of cocaine in his personal luggage on an Aeromexico flight he helped pilot.

The case marks the second time in nine months that Aeromexico employees have been arrested at Madrid's Barajas Airport on suspicion of smuggling cocaine after flying there on Mexico's remaining legacy airline. In December, three Aeromexico flight attendants were arrested after allegedly attempting to enter Spain with more than 308 pounds of the drug between them, as La Plaza reported.

The flight attendants, all men, were traveling as tourists but carrying Aeromexico identification. The recent arrest is considerably more serious. The suspect, Ruben Garcia Garcia, had served as first officer on an Aeromexico Boeing 777 flight to the Spanish capital from Mexico City when he was arrested Aug. 17.

In a statement posted on its website, the airline said it "deeply regretted" the arrest and that Garcia had been fired (link in Spanish). Mexico's federal transportation agency on Wednesday revoked Garcia's pilot license, and the national pilots union said it would not come to his defense (links in Spanish).

Garcia was being held at a Spanish jail while awaiting charges.

 

McArdle begins sentence in Spain

DERMOT McArdle was extradited to Spain on Friday last to serve two years in prison for the manslaughter of his wife – on what would have been their 16th wedding anniversary.

McArdle, from Brookfield, Heynestown, was flown out to begin the sentence for the manslaughter of Kelly Ann Corcoran who died after falling from a hotel balcony while the couple were on holiday in Marbella in February 2000.

Gardaí transported the Dundalk man from Cloverhill prison on Friday last to Dublin airport and handed him over to two Spanish police officers for the 2.35pm flight to Madrid.

The extradition marks the end of a lengthy legal battle after the father-ofthree formally surrendered himself at the High Court in Dublin.

His deportation back to Spain was delayed by one week while Spanish authorities worked out details of his extradition.

As a result of the unexpected delays the 41year-old began the first steps to serving the prison sentence on what would have been his 16th wedding anniversary.

He married Kelly Ann Corcoran on August 5th 1995. After spending his first few days at the Soto del Real prison near Madrid, McArdle was driven over 600 kilometres in a prison van with a Civil Guard escort to the notorious Alhaurin de la Torre prison outside Malaga in southern Spain, where he will serve out his sentence.

The Spanish courts also previously ordered McArdle to pay all costs relating to his legal battle, amounting to €500,000, and awarded €100,000 to Ms. Corcoran's parents and €60,000 to each of his sons.

The Corcoran family welcomed the extradition through a statement read outside the High Court in Dublin on the day McArdle handed himself in.

' The family are very pleased that this is another step in achieving justice for Kelly Ann,' said Peter Moran, brother-in-law.

' We would like to thank all our friends and relatives who have helped us through this difficult time, and we would like to thank the authorities for all their hard work.

 

Three fraudsters who operated one of the largest boiler room scams ever to be uncovered have been jailed for a record 19 years in total.

Tomas Wilmot and his two sons Kevin and Christopher were jailed at Southwark Crown Court after an investigation into a £14m deception that involved 16 crime fighting bodies working across 10 national jurisdictions.
Tomas Wilmot, 64, the ringleader of the operation, was jailed for nine years. His sons were given sentences of five years each. The sentencing took place on Monday, hours after they were found guilty of the multi-million pound scam.
Honour Judge Leonard QC, sentencing, said: "You ran a highly successful enterprise. You deprived many individual investors of substantial amounts of money; for some that was money they could not afford to give up. It was a staggering amount of £14m.
"You've sailed so close to the wind in your commercial enterprises it was not a surprise the FSA investigated you."
The court heard that the Wilmots operated an international operation involving 16 different boiler rooms selling shares to 1,700 victims in the UK. Although the operation was controlled from the UK, many of the boiler rooms, the offices that called potential investors and pressurised them into buying bogus shares, were based in Spain. The scam ran for nearly five years before it was brought to the attention of the FSA and then the City of London Police in 2008.

 

A drugs baron and convicted fraudster has once again gone on the run, police have confirmed

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Disgraced former Swansea businessman Martin Evans, 49, was given a prison sentence of 21 years and three months for his part in a multi-million pound drug smuggling operation.
He was then later given a separate eight year jail term for failing to comply with a £4.5 million confiscation order.
Before being brought to justice for an ostrich farm scam, Evans fled to Spain where he started a new life as a drugs dealer.
Wiltshire Police admitted Evans had broken the terms of a three-day temporary release by failing to return to prison and have now launched a public appeal to trace his whereabouts.
A spokesman said: "Martin Evans, originally from South Wales, has been an inmate at Erlestoke prison since 2006.
"He was released on temporary licence to an address in Swansea, between August 5 and 8, but failed to return.
"Substantial inquiries have been carried out with many agencies including circulation of his details and photograph to all forces, circulation as wanted on the police national computer, and financial and intelligence checks."
It is not the first time the former Welsh businessman of the year has been on the run from the authorities.
Days before he was to face justice for swindling 115 investors out of their savings in an ostrich farm scam, he fled to Spain with his mistress.

The names of two Co Down women murdered in Turkey have been released - amid three arrests

The pair, aged 53 and 58, were Marion Elizabeth Graham and Kathy Dinsmore from the Newry area.

The Turkish teen being held by police is understood be the boyfriend of a daughter of one of the victims.

It is believed he has confessed to the attack and is expected to be brought before a judge in Turkey on Friday evening for a preliminary hearing.

Two other men, one who is understood to be the teenager's father and another believed to be a taxi driver, are also said to be helping police with their enquiries.

Media reports in Turkey suggest police are investigating claims that the girl's mother had refused to allow the young couple to marry, as one line of enquiry.

The bodies of the women were found in a forest, just outside the city of Izmir - about 75 miles from the resort of Kusadasi.

It is understood one of the victims owned a property in Kusadasi, but that the women had travelled to Izmir.

This is every family's nightmare and the whole area is in grief that something so awful has happened.Margaret Ritchie, SDLP
A local source told UTV the two women had been taken to a wooded area and stabbed to death - they were later reported as missing from their resort by one of their daughters.

The source explained that it's believed the daughter had been sent on a boat trip, while her boyfriend took the two women on a shopping trip - at this point, reports suggest he took them to the forest where their bodies were found.

"In the five years I've been reporting out of Turkey, we've never covered the murder of a foreign person," the source told UTV.

"The Turkish population always gets on really well with foreign tourists coming into the country - they are very surprised at what has occurred."

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin told UTV that consular staff are in the process of contacting family members.

SDLP leader and South Down MP Margaret Ritchie said people in her constituency have been left shocked and saddened by the murder of two local women.

"On behalf of the SDLP, I want to express my heartfelt condolences to the families of the two women who lost their lives in such a brutal, ghastly way," she said.

Sinn Féin MLA for Newry, Mickey Brady sent his condolences to the relatives following the shocking news.

"Such tragedy should never be visited on a family and to think that two families from this area will be plunged into such despair and sadness is terrible," he said.

DUP MLA Jim Wells also expressed his sadness over the murders and said: "I've been on holidays to this area and it's relatively peaceful and safe - this makes it even more tragic."

Ulster Unionist MLA for Newry and Armagh, Danny Kennedy said he was "shocked at the horrific events".

"This is simply awful news which will cause a great deal of shock and sadness in the local community," he said.

"On behalf of the Ulster Unionist party I would like to extend my deepest sympathies to the families at this awful time and to offer any support and assistance which they may require."

 

Man arrested in Spain for plot against protests of papal visit

Spanish police arrested Tuesday in Madrid a 24-year-old Mexican man who was apparently planning to attack people protesting the impending visit of Pope Benedict XVI to take part in the celebration of World Youth Day.

The suspect, identified by the initials J.A.P.B, was arrested without offering any resistance outside one of the pavilions at the Ifema fairgrounds, where many of the pilgrims are staying who came to Madrid for the youth event, police said.

The suspect is a student at Spain's General Organic Chemistry Institute and planned an attack using asphyxiating gases and other chemical substances.

Seized at his home in Madrid was a USB flash drive memory for computers and two notebooks with notes about chemical processes that had nothing to do with his chemistry studies.

Judicial authorities told Efe that the man in custody had allegedly announced on Internet forums his intention to mount an attack on people opposing the pope's visit.

A Spanish court issued a warrant to search his workplace and his home.

The visit of Benedict XVI, due to arrive in Madrid on Thursday, has sparked widespread protest from groups, some of them Catholic, that oppose the use of public funds amid Spain's economic crisis.

Though the organizers and the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero say that the benefits of the visit will cover the costs, an association of anti-clerical organizations has called for a demonstration on Wednesday in downtown Madrid.

Under the slogan "None of my taxes for the pope," the demonstrators will march down the capital's main thoroughfares following tough negotiations with local authorities to establish the protest route.

 

Two Britons have been arrested by the National Police in Ciutadella, Menorca in connection with thefts from hotels

Two Britons have been arrested by the National Police in Ciutadella, Menorca in connection with thefts from hotels. They were detained as they tried to leave the island.

Police have linked the two, 46 year old R.C.D. and Z.B. whose age has not been given with seven robberies from hotel rooms in urbanisations in the town. R.C.D. is said to have a criminal record, both in Spain and the U.K., and has been in prison in both countries.

The two are alleged to have entered the empty rooms by invisibly forcing the lock, to remove money and items of value found inside.
Police searched their hire car as they were trying to leave the island, and found cash in several currencies, as well as top brand electronic items, phones, clothes, cameras and other items.

Investigations continue, but police say they already know the pair has stayed in several different hotels on the Baleares over recent days, always staying just the single night in each venue.

British man had 200 ecstasy pills for 'private use

24 year old British man, named with the initials M.E., has told the duty court on Ibiza that he had a Tupperware container with 200 ecstasy pills for private consumption with 30 of his friends.
The container also held 51 doses and 78 grams of mephedrone, and ten doses of Ketamine.

The judge in Instruction Court 3 in Palma, Carmen Martín, said however that she did not believe his story, and ordered he be held in prison without bail.

The Briton was one of eight British men who were arrested as part of the EDOA drug squad operation, authorised by Judge José Espinosa in two apartments in the Jovial block in Sant Antoni. Three of the eight have since been released, but have to register with the court twice a month.

The group claimed that the drugs found were in a room which belonged to another Briton who has not been arrested. They claimed that the ginger-haired man had escaped through a window when the Guardia Civil arrived.

 

 

TWO friends are being held in a Spanish jail after being accused of attempting to murder two men during a lads’ holiday in Alicante.

Kyle Thain, 24, of Sandringham Road, Southend, and James Harris, 29, of Pelham Road, Southend, were arrested as they went to board the plane home.

The pals, both former pupils of the King John School, Thundersley, are being blamed for beating up and stabbing two men in a bar near where they were staying.

However, the lads maintain they never even went to the bar. Their families are convinced there has been a terrible case of mistaken identity.

Jay Thain, 29, Kyle’s older brother, is now working with the help of family and friends, to get both men back home.

He said: “They are good boys and they are innocent. They are not violent and they have been locked up for something they didn’t do.”

James and Kyle, along with another pal Joe Elliot, 24, jetted out for a long weekend in the Alicante province Cabo Roig on Friday, July 1.

All three were quizzed on Tuesday, July 5, at Murcia Airport before Kyle and James were held on suspicion of attempted murder.

The pair were taken to separate prison cells before being transferred to Fontcalent prison, Alicante, on Friday, July 8, where they have been ever since. Joe was allowed to fly home, but he stayed to call the families.

Jay told how they still had not been charged, as it is down to the judge. However he is holding out to give police more time to recover a getaway car.

Jay added: “Initially they were not told what they were arrested for. They were questioned at the airport and then taken to a police station. They were not read any rights.

“They had no contact with anyone for three days, had to go to the toilet in a carrier bag and they didn’t find out what they were accused of until Friday, July 8 when they appeared in court. ”

While on holiday the trio stayed in an apartment belonging to James’s parents and twice went for nights out at an Australian bar, called Bushwacka.

Jay, also of Sandringham Road, said the night before the lads were due to return home there was a bloody brawl at a nearby Irish bar, Flanagans.

Jay said he has learned that two Londoners rowed in the bar with the owner, a bouncer and another man.

The men were thrown out, but later returned to beat up the bouncer and the other man, stabbing them both before fleeing in a black car.

Kyle and James were arrested after bar staff at the Bushwacka said Kyle and James fitted the descriptions of the two attackers.

The pair have since taken part in an identity parade in court where witnesses to the violence picked them out. However Jay, who had flown out to see his brother and James in court, said the line-ups featured Mediterranean men and it was too easy to pick Kyle and James out as the guilty Brits.

Fraudsters who conned men into believing they were signing up to become male escorts have been arrested in Spain.

The gang of six based in Fuengirola on Spain’s Costa del Sol made at least €50,000 euros (£44,000) after persuading some 180 men to pay a joining fee to register as gigolos.
The elaborate scam lured men in with advertisements in the national media promising vast returns for wining and dining lonely women.
Men wanting to follow in the footsteps of ‘Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo’ - a 1999 comedy about a fishtank cleaner who goes into business as a male prostitute - were then asked to pay joining fees of between €200 and €1,000 euros (£175 and £875) to be put on the books of “reputable agencies”.
But the online agencies were hoaxes and the clients never materialised.
Police said the masterminds behind the scam were a husband and wife and her older brother. Three others were arrested for opening bank accounts used to transfer money from the victims for five per cent of the profits.

None of those arrested nor those that fell for the scam have been named.
Police said they uncovered the network after receiving complaints from different men who said they had never received any work as a result of signing up with the agencies.

 

Six arrested after Elche shooting incident

Police have made six arrests following a shooting incident in Elche on Monday. The main hypothesis is that it came about through the settling of drugs scores, leaving four people injured, one of them a pregnant woman. She was injured in the shoulder by a shot which also affected a lung, and was the most seriously hurt of the four injured. She underwent surgery in the Elche University Hospital on Monday night and is progressing well.

The shooting occurred at 7.45pm on Monday night, in Calle Diego Martínez Sánchez, next to the Doctor Sapena Health Centre.

National Police say that three women were detained initially; two of them allegedly taking part in the shooting and the other on a charge of causing a brawl, while on Tuesday three men were arrested when travelling in a car. One of the men was found to be carrying a 38 revolver on his person, with ammunition and ready to fire.

In addition five homes have been searched in the Puñalada district of the town, which resulted in 800 grams of hashish, two revolvers, several knives, a baton, four vehicles, 1,100 € in cash and ammunition.

 

20 arrested as police clash with tourists in Lloret de Mar

Twenty people have been arrested in another clash between tourists and police in Lloret de Mar. It follows earlier trouble in the early hours of Monday this week in which police used rubber bullets when hit by a shower of bottles and other objects.

In the clashes in the early hours of today, Thursday, events got out of hand at the doors of the Colossos discotec in the town, after the premises were evacuated after the air conditioning broke down. It seems there was a power cut, and the disco’s own generators were not powerful enough to run the air conditioning.
The club holds 1,800 people and was full because an international DJ was performing.

What are described as ‘hundreds of hooligans’ then went on the rampage, setting fire to several rubbish containers, and facing up to the regional police, Los Mossos d’Esquadra, at the doors of the disco and around 2am this morning.

20 arrests were made for public order offences. One local newspaper has the headline ‘Lloret is like London’.

All those arrested are foreigners aged under 30. They come from France (13), Germany (3), Holland (2), Switzerland (1) and Solvinia (1).

Mayor of Lloret, Romà Codina, has announced that measures are to be taken so that ‘drunken tourism’ will not prejudice family and sports tourism which the town wants to attract.

 

Police free teen kidnapped in Algeciras over drugs debt

AN operation carried out by the National Police and the French Gendarmerie resulted in an 18-year-old man being freed from captivity.

Six people were arrested, two of them in Marbella and four in France, for their alleged involvement in the kidnapping of the young man, due to a settling of scores between hashish traffickers who operated between Morocco, Spain and France.

The investigation began when a man reported the kidnapping and said the family had been asked for a ransom of €300,000. The kidnappers claimed that the victim’s brother had stolen a large quantity of hashish from them. It was found the calls had been made from France and the French police were involved.

The victim, who was captured in Algeciras was initially held at a Marbella urbanization before being taken to France and later to Girona, where he was set free. From there, he travelled to Barcelona, and police took him to hospital. He then returned to Malaga by plane, and was later transported to Algeciras.

The leader of the gang, who organized the kidnapping, was one of the two men arrested in Marbella.

Police seized bullet-proof vests, weapons, 17 kilos of hashish, €13,200 in cash and several quantities of cocaine, heroin and cannabis resin. The investigation is ongoing and further arrests are expected.

 

SPANISH police have been ordered to arrest the suspected drink driver accused of killing an Irish couple in a collision.

A nationwide warrant has been issued for the arrest of Juan Ochoa after court workers spent months trying to track him down.

He is the suspect in a collision that killed daycare centre worker John O'Connell and his wife Mary, from Caherciveen, Co Kerry, three years ago.

The accident happened as the couple, who were celebrating their silver wedding anniversary, walked back from a pub in Orihuela Costa near Alicante. Mr Ochoa was allegedly over the drink-drive limit and doing three times the speed limit at the time.

But authorities have been unable to find him at any of the addresses he gave the court after being arrested.

The couple's family in Co Kerry last night said they were not being kept informed of developments by Spanish authorities.

"The only information we have is second-hand information that we usually read in the newspapers the following day," the couple's niece Yvonne told the Irish Independent.

Yesterday, a judge in charge of the case ordered Spanish police nationwide to detain him immediately if they find him.

A spokesman for the court in Orihuela said: "The court has issued an arrest warrant for the man accused of the manslaughter of the Irish couple.

Alcohol

"When the police find him, he will be transferred to the court, so he can be informed that the case is going to trial."

Mr Ochoa, who is believed to be Spanish, is facing four years in jail and a lengthy driving ban if convicted over the May 2008 crash.

State prosecutors also want the courts to make him pay the dead couple's relatives, including Mr O'Connell's mother Mary and the dead woman's siblings, nearly €80,000 in compensation. A date for his trial has not yet been set.

Mr and Mrs O'Connell, aged 46 and 45, were walking home from an Eileen Reed concert at the Paddy's Point bar in Orihuela Costa when the collision happened just after midnight on May 6, 2008.

Mr Ochoa failed a breath test at the scene. Officers said afterwards that his clothes smelled of alcohol, his face was pale and he kept on repeating himself.

Traffic officers concluded in a report that Mr Ochoa had been doing three times the speed limit when he slammed the brakes on his hire car in an attempt to avoid the O'Connells

Police fire rubber bullets at tourists in Lloret de Mar

Dozens of tourists saw a standoff with police in the early hours of Monday in Lloret de Mar.

It seems the Catalan Regional Police, Los Mossos d’Esquadra, and the Local Police from Lloret, had blocked off the street after the discotheques closed, and the tourists then started to throw bottles and other objects at them.

The police say they were obliged to fire rubber bullets for their own protection and to disperse the crowd.

Reports indicate that police were first called in after some 400 hundred youngsters remained in the main avenue of the town after the clubs had closed, refused to go home, and started vandalism of street fittings and shops. Several containers were overturned and a police car was damaged.

El Mundo reports that most of the tourists were French and Italians, and that the conflict ended after the arrest of a 23 year old Frenchman who faces public order offences and is being processed by the Instruction Court in Blanes.

 

Two Britons stabbed on Ibiza

The Guardia Civil has arrested six youngsters following street fights in Platja d’en Bossa on Ibiza, in which two Britons were stabbed.

Two of the six were later released and the other four will appear in court shortly.

One of the Britons, aged 25, was seriously injured by being stabbed in the chest, and continues in the intensive care unit of the Can Misses hospital. The other has been allowed home after treatment.

The fighting happened on Thursday afternoon, with the Guardia Civil saying there were two consecutive fights in which British youngsters were implicated. The first started in the swimming pool of the Jet apartments at 5pm, when the 25 year old Briton was stabbed in the chest with a broken bottle, and also stabbed in the back. Then minutes later the other Briton, aged 27, was stabbed in the leg in a second fight 150 metres away.

 

Ton of hashish recovered in Algeciras port

The Guardia Civil has recovered a ton of hashish and arrested 16 people in Algeciras. Two vehicles were found carrying the drugs in false bottoms, and the traffickers had hoped to get through the port which was very busy with tourist traffic.

The Guardia Civil said in a statement that the operation began on July 22 when officers detected people transporting drugs in vehicles with false bottoms. They chose the last ferries of the night and times of high numbers of tourists.

13 people were also found to be transporting the drug inside their bags in their bodies.

It comes after the amount of drugs recovered in Andalucía so far this year is up 35% on last year.