30 year old grape farmer from Villanueva de Alcardate (Toledo) found dead last night, died of heat stroke.

30 year old grape farmer from Villanueva de Alcardate (Toledo) found dead last night, died of heat stroke. According to local mayor, Jorge Luis Garrido, the dead man, Pedro Pablo MP, left for his vineyard at around 5pm yesterday afternoon to install a new irrigation system. After he failed to return by nightfall, his father and brother went out to look for him, but only managed to find his car. After Local Police and Guardia Civil officers joined the hunt, Pedro was eventually found at around 11.30pm. Maximum temperatures in the Castilla La Mancha region soared above 40ºC yesterday, and the heatwave is expected to last for a few more days at le...

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Posted in: Castilla La Mancha

Police in Mallorca investigating sunbathers death

Police in Mallorca are investigating whether a 29 year old Bulgarian man who passed away in Son Llàtzer Hospital last Tuesday, died as a result of heat or sunstroke. Vladimir suffered severe sunburns last Saturday on Cala Major beach in Palma. The alarm was raised by a lifeguard who noticed that the man had not moved for several hours. Police are not ruling out the possibility that the man might have worn himself out while bathing, and fallen asleep after reaching the bea...

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Posted in: Mallorca

Ryanair said that its winter cost cutting programme is going to hit Majorca.

Spanish airline industry was rocked by the announcement by the Palma-based airline Spanair that it plans to shed a third of its workforce, Ireland low-cost carrier Ryanair said that its winter cost cutting programme is going to hit Majorca.While Ryanair has a number of new routes planned out of its Palma hub for December, it will first be suspending all its Palma operations between November 4 and December 19.Ryanair sources explained yesterday that while it is having to battle rising operating costs at Stansted Airport (see Business) the combination of rising fuel prices and Palma being one of the most expensive airports to operate from in Spain makes flying in and out of Majorca during what is considered a relatively quiet period, financially unviable at a time when all airlines are trying...

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Posted in: Balearics

100kg of coc aimne were stolen from police headquarters and replaced with talcum powder

Police in Seville have been left red-faced after more than 100kg of drugs were stolen from police headquarters and replaced with talcum powder, a spokesman said.The missing drugs, amounting to 95% of the cocaine seized in police operations, would be worth about five million euros on the black market. All the signs are that the thief or thieves who took the drugs were regular visitors, and might even be police officers themselves as there was no sign of the door having been forced.According to the newspaper El Pais, the keys were usually kept by the head of Seville’s organised crime unit, although he sometimes handed them over to other officers.Seville police when asked to comment, would only confirm that narcotics stored at the police station had “gone missing” and that the internal affairs...

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Posted in: Seville

British man threatened members of a gypsy clan known locally as ‘Los Pertolos’ which, according to the court, is well known for its acts of violence.

Married couple have been sentenced to four years in prison by Almeria Provincial Court for extorting money and the ownership of a car from a British man living in Arboleas. The couple, aged 41 and 46, are members of a gypsy clan known locally as ‘Los Pertolos’ which, according to the court, is well known for its acts of violence. The couple threatened the British man, who ran an estate agent’s business in the Arboleas area, showing him a pistol which they told him had “already been used to kill a person” and telling him at the same time that they could “become enemies”. Later they went to the man’s home where other unidentified members of the clan surrounded him and forced him to sign a contract giving work to the accused. The victim was also forced to give them a document which they then...

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Posted in: Almeria

Expat living in Calpe will be extradited if found guilty of a massive robbery

Expat living in Calpe will be extradited if found guilty of a massive robbery in his home country. The 60-year-old German national is said to have an international arrest warrant hanging over him in connection with a raid on a supermarket in the town of Herne. Guardia Civil officers say criminal damage to the value of 2,200€ was caused and around 30,000€’s worth of goods stolen during the theft in May 2005. The accused has been transferred to the national court in Madrid for trial following his arrest at the weeke...

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Posted in: Calpe

Miguel Merida Gallardo old time Bandido

Miguel Merida Gallardo, a minor thief wanted for around 100 robberies in 1994, followed the example of the Maquis – the Spanish resistance to Franco - and lived in caves for 14 years, subsisting on food and supplies stolen from market gardens and farmsteads. He was last heard of in Baena (Cordoba) in February 1994 and reappeared on July 13 2008 in Alcaudete (Jaen) after a suspicious resident reported him to the PolicÌa Local. Miguel Merida, now aged 48, had two principal “residences” – a cave in Luque (Cordoba) and another in Alcaudete where he kept provisions that included tinned food and a battery-operated television. After being released on parole and spending the night of July 14 in a municipal hostel in Alcalzar La Real, Merida has again disappeared and as a result the Guardia Civil are...

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Posted in: Alcalzar La Real

Málaga waiter stabbed

waiter in a Málaga restaurant was stabbed after he asked a beggar to stop bothering his customers. The vagrant smashed plates on the floor before picking up a table knife and attacking the 26-year-old waiter who was not seriously injured. Catering workers have complained that city centre beggars constitute an on-going problem but that complaints to the town hall bring no soluti...

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Posted in: Málaga

Wave of arrests investigation into taxfraud involving a bank in Liechtenstein. Costa arrests were in Marbella, Fuengirola, Torremolinos

70 Spanish nationals have been arrested in a major investigation into tax and fiscal fraud involving a bank in Liechtenstein. Four of the detentions were in Marbella, Fuengirola, Torremolinos and Benalmádena and officers have also visited a private bank located in Nueva Andalucía.According to official sources some 200 million euros is thought to have been involved in the fraud. The 'Jade-Limusina' investigation started in April when the Tax Agency presented the anti-corruption prosecutor with a report indicating that 198 people could be involved in tax evasion. These were all resident in Spain and are thought to have had dealings with the Liechtenstein Global Trust (LGT).This is an international case and started off in Germany where some 1,000 people are though to be involved. As it developed...

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Posted in: Fuengirola,Marbella,Torremolinos and Benalmádena

Civil Guard is looking for the thieves who broke into the home belonging to their Civil Guard Chief Captain in San Vicente del Raspeig, in Alicante.

Civil Guard is looking for the thieves who broke into the home belonging to their Civil Guard Chief Captain in San Vicente del Raspeig, in Alicante.The chief was asleep with his family in his home in the old Guardia Civil barracks in Babel, where some 20 civil guard families now reside, while the thieves obtained access through a balcony window. The embarrassing theft took place a month ago, but news of it has only just been released. A bag and other items were tak...

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Posted in: Alicante

Prices falling, buyers are disappearing and developers, starved of loans by Spanish banks nervous about international financial instability

prices are falling, buyers are disappearing and developers, starved of loans by Spanish banks nervous about international financial instability, are going bust. Along the Costas, developments lie half-finished, without water and electricity, and without any prospect of being sold. For Spain's notoriously corrupt and capricious planning regime, which gave birth to the developments now disfiguring virtually all the country's Mediterranean coastline, the chickens are coming home to roost. Houses built on the nod of corrupt mayors are being refused retrospective planning permission by regional administrations under pressure from the green lobby. Many properties, new and not-so-new, are blighted by illegality and are the effectively worthless; others have simply been demolished. Scan the websites...

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Posted in: Spain's notoriously corrupt and capricious planning regime

The biggest corporate failure in Spanish history, Martinsa-Fadesa on Tuesday filed a petition for court administration after accumulating debts of EUR

the biggest corporate failure in Spanish history, Martinsa-Fadesa on Tuesday filed a petition for court administration after accumulating debts of EUR 7 billion.Anecdotal evidence apart - the number of creditors affected in this recourse to court administration is the largest in Spanish economic history - the disaster is clearly due to the profound recession that the Spanish property market is now going through, after two decades of the real estate bubble, in which building companies embarked on a dizzy spiral of indebtedness and excessive construction.They believed that they were looking at an endless party, but they have now come up against the financial institutions' difficulties in maintaining the necessary flow of loans in a situation of worldwide tightening of liquidity.It would not...

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Posted in: Martinsa-Fadesa

James Douglas Willson retired Des Plaines pilot convicted of international drug trafficking in Morocco

James Douglas Willson, 67, suffers from diabetes and kidney failure and has lost 35 pounds, said his daughter, Marilyn Brief.A retired Des Plaines pilot convicted of international drug trafficking in Morocco isn't getting adequate medical care and may not survive his 7-year prison sentence, a family member says."My dad's body is shutting down," Brief said. "He's dying."Imprisoned since early May, Willson was convicted after a Cessna 337 he reportedly was flying was seized by Moroccan police on a rural road, according to a statement from the Moroccan news agency.Willson piloted the twin-engine plane and landed it in Morocco to load drugs, according to the statement, which said two Moroccans also received prison sentences. Brief and Mouafik Anis, Willson's Moroccan attorney, said that Willson...

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Posted in: Morocco

Álvaro Iglesias was found guilty of sexually abusing five children between 2002 and 2004.

The Spanish paedophile known as ‘Nanysex’ has been sentenced to 58 years in prison for sexually abusing five children between the years 2002 and 2004. The name came for Álvaro Iglesias following his system of offering himself to babysit for the children who he would then go on to abuse. He also faces charges on six counts of the corruption of minors in localities in Madrid and Murcia.His friend and accomplice José G.C. was sentenced to 31 years in prison by the Madrid court, and a third defendant, Eduardo S.M. was sentenced to 14 years after he was the only one of the three to show remorse for his actions.‘Nanysex’ was arrested in May 2005 after a long police investigation into the abuser who would record his abuse on videos which he would then exchange with others on the Intern...

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Posted in: Madrid and Murcia

Martinsa-Fadesa -- which operated out of Ireland and dealt with several agents here -- preparing to declare bankruptcy in the face of debts of €5bn.

Spanish housing crisis claimed its first major victim, with property developer Martinsa-Fadesa -- which operated out of Ireland and dealt with several agents here -- preparing to declare bankruptcy in the face of debts of €5bn. It has created major shockwaves here, among customers who are still awaiting the completion of their dream home in the sun.Another announcement, which sent ripples across the industry this week, was news that Larionova, the biggest and most high profile of the Irish foreign property agents, is also to shut up shop, amid difficulties getting payment from developers.These fresh worries come on top of the triple whammy already tarnishing Irish investors' little slice of abroad, with interest rates doubling in the past 18 months, property prices in some previous 'sure thing'...

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Posted in: Ireland

Joseph Jones was accompanied by officers from the Herts and Beds Major Crime Unit on his return from Spain

Joseph Jones, 23, of Crescent Road, New Barnet, was accompanied by officers from the Herts and Beds Major Crime Unit on his return from Spain yesterday.The headless body of father-of-four John Finney was found in Ickleford in March, weeks after he was abducted outside his home in Northaw.One of three implicated in the case, Jones and another man were arrested in Spain on murder charges in May.The third, 28-year-old Mark Curran, of Dollis Valley Way in Barnet, is on remand ahead of a further Crown Court hearing at St Albans later this mon...

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Posted in: St Albans

ex Mayor of Marbella, Julián Muñoz six month prison sentence

The Provincial Court in Málaga has confirmed the six month prison sentence handed down against the ex Mayor of Marbella, Julián Muñoz and five GIL party councillors, Rafael González, Manuel Calle, Mario Jiménez, Marisa Alcalá and José Marino Pomares, for real estate corruption in the Incopromar case. The group of six were also banned from holding public office for seven years in the case which came as a result of a licence being given to the Incopromar company to build 68 homes, shops and parking on land not classified for building in the Avenida del Mar in the to...

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Posted in: Marbella

Mijas Costa bridge came down when a crane got caught underneath it, and the blocked A7 motorway caused traffic chaos for the rest of the evening,

Four of the six injured in the accident caused by the collapse of a pedestrian bridge over the A7 motorway in Mijas Costa on Monday afternoon have been allowed home from hospital, while the two men who were in the first car which was crushed by the falling bridge remain in a serious but stable condition in the Costa del Sol hospital in Marbella. The men aged 44 and 30 had to be rescued from the remains of their crushed vehicle by fire-crews. One has suffered head, abdomen and neck injuries, the other facial and head injuries.The bridge came down when a crane got caught underneath it, and the blocked A7 motorway caused traffic chaos for the rest...

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Posted in: Mijas Costa

Gang of drug traffickers had six light planes for bringing drugs from Africa into Spain.

Spanish authorities have broken up a gang of drug traffickers that had six light planes for bringing drugs from Africa into Spain.The criminal organization was led by a veteran airline pilot, arrested together with 11 other gang members, who used airfields and landing strips in wooded areas in Andalucía to evade detection by security forces.Besides the six airplanes, the Civil Guard, Spain's militarized national police, seized assault rifles and other weapons plus documents and a quantity of drugs.The first phase of the operation was launched last November, when the Civil Guard was alerted to the existence of several drug traffickers suspected to bringing hashish from Africa into Spain.At the end of February three Spanish citizens and two Frenchmen were arrested in the southern province of...

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Posted in: Sevilla

Torremolinos man has been convicted and sentenced to four years in prison

Torremolinos man has been convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for attempting to murder another man over a debt. The court heard how he approached the victim in the street in the early hours of June 25, 2006, and slit his throat, severing the jugular vein. The victim survived the attack but took more than two months to recov...

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Posted in: Torremolinos

Montejaque hashish plants find

19-year-old youth has been arrested in the village of Montejaque near Ronda on drugs offences. The Guardia Civil arrested him after 19 hashish plants were found growing in pots on his patio. A routine patrol had spotted the plants and the officers suspected they were cannabis. First they set about identifying them as drugs then they made the arre...

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Posted in: Ronda

6,000 euros cash robbery in Malaga

case of robbery of recently withdrawn cash has been recorded in Málaga. Two thieves relieved a man of 6,000 euros which he had just taken out of a city centre bank at lunchtime last Friday. The pair, reported to have South American accents, felled their victim with a blow to the legs before snatching the money and fleei...

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Posted in: Málaga

Brit arrested for exposure

National Police in La Línea have arrested a 54-year-old British national of Indian origin for allegedly exposing himself to a child in the town. He was reported to the police by a neighbour after he habitually appeared nude and making obscene gestures by his window while a neighbour’s five-year-old daughter was in his clear view on the balco...

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Posted in: La Línea

Moroccan national arrested Algeciras port

The Guardia Civil in Algeciras port have arrested a Moroccan national, described as violent and dangerous and alleged to be a member of an international drug trafficking network. At the time of his arrest at the Tangier ferry passport control it is believed he was trying to flee to Morocco after Italian police issued a warrant for his detenti...

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Posted in: Algeciras port

Arrested a 35-year-old Málaga man alleged to have robbed two shops in Torrox Costa.

Guardia Civil officers in Nerja have arrested a 35-year-old Málaga man alleged to have robbed two shops in Torrox Costa. He is thought to have threatened staff with a large kitchen knife and a replica firearm before making off with a total of 800 euros. His targets were a small corner shop and a bake...

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Posted in: Torrox Costa

Five people have been arrested for allegedly attacking officers at the Alhaurín el Grande Guardia Civil headquarters

Five people have been arrested for allegedly attacking officers at the Alhaurín el Grande Guardia Civil headquarters. The incident occurred when relatives of a detained man saw officers restraining him after he tried to escape. From outside the facility’s fence, they hurled rocks and punched one officer who approached the fen...

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Posted in: Alhaurín el Grande Guardia Civil headquarters

British holidaymaker Mark Day,has died after falling 40ft from a hotel during a forfeit for losing a game of poker.

British holidaymaker has died after falling 40ft from a hotel during a forfeit for losing a game of poker. Mark Day, 20, plunged to his death in a freak accident on Sunday night during a holiday with university friends at the three-star Majorca Beach Hotel in the resort of Magalluf. Police sources revealed that after losing a game of cards he was dared to strip off and run along a hotel corridor in just his socks and underpants. But he lost his balance at the end of the passageway and smashed through a fifth-floor window, falling to concrete below. He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics shortly after 8pm. Mr Day's friends, Marc Smart and Steve Kimberley, both 21, who studied with him at the University of Essex, are helping police piece together the events leading up to the incident....

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Posted in: Majorca Beach Hotel