Neapolitan Camorra, planned a massive motorway bomb to kill the bestselling writer Roberto Saviano

Neapolitan Camorra, planned a massive motorway bomb to kill the bestselling writer Roberto Saviano, the author of a big expose on their activities, as he travelled with his armed Carabinieri bodyguards. The plot, revealed by one of the Casalesi clan supergrasses, has resulted in a flurry of arrests and yesterday, asked by text message if he was OK, Saviano sent the Herald a simple, one-word return: "resisto" (meaning "I'm resisting" or "I'm still standing"). Saviano, 29, interviewed in secret in Naples in June, has lived a nomadic existence in hiding for more than two years after he wrote his blockbuster exposé of the vicious Neapolitan Mafia. The book, Gomorrah , has been turned into a movie that won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes this year and will be Italy's entry in the best foreign film category at this year's Oscars. The bomb plot was revealed by the supergrass, Carmine Schiavone, who admitted that the book's revelations had infuriated the Casalesi clan bosses and a plan to blow up Saviano and his police escorts was expected before Christmas. Schiavone has been given a new identity and lives in hiding, like Saviano, but with more than 20 armed guards to protect him. He is the cousin of the jailed Casalesi family boss, Francesco Schiavone, who has pledged to murder his relative for turning on the clan. Carmine Schiavone informed police that the plot to kill Saviano had "moved into the operational phase". The idea was to plant a roadway bomb on the motorway between Rome and Naples and to kill the young author and his bodyguards, who have become his friends and only companions. Saviano has been assigned more plain-clothes officers and is moved from house to house. Franco Roberti, the chief anti-Mafia investigatorin Naples, said the author had been under threat for some time: "We know that he is exposed to a major risk and we have placed adequate protective measures around him". It is understood that Neapolitan police are linking the plot to another piece of information provided by another informer, which suggested a Camorra fugitive, Giuseppe Setalo, was known to be searching for a large quantity of explosives.

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60-year-old Stanislao Cantelli was playing cards in a social club on the high street of Casal di Principe

60-year-old Stanislao Cantelli was playing cards in a social club on the high street of Casal di Principe - a satellite town and stronghold of the Camorra gangs - when someone walked in and fired 18 bullets. Paratroopers were 200 metres away. By the time the police arrived, the killer and all witnesses had fled. Shops were closing their shutters.Two days after Silvio Berlusconi, centre-right prime minister, sent 500 troops to reinforce police in the Naples area after a spate of killings, the Mafia delivered their blunt response.Police say Mr Cantelli, a retired cheese factory worker, paid the price for being the uncle of Luigi Diana, a Mafia "pentito" or turncoat whose information had led to the arrest of members of the Casalesi clan.
Two weeks earlier, suspected Casalesi hitmen shot six African immigrants in Castelvolturno, a derelict zone north of Naples trying to reinvent itself with a coastal golf course.A turf war over narcotics or golf, or simply a cocaine-driven demonstration of power by the mob? Police are not sure. Frightened immigrants protested, accusing the state of abandoning them and Italians of racism.The government's decision to deploy the army has been cautiously welcomed by Italians as a sign that the state is trying to impose an authority that has been absent for years. Critics say it is just for show.Meanwhile, the ministers of interior and defence disagree on the nature of the battle. After Mr Cantelli's murder, Roberto Maroni, the interior minister who believes he is waging a "civil war", said he had never expected "a bed of roses" and victory within hours. "But I am sure we can do it and the people of Campania (the region around Naples) will learn to trust the state," he said on television.Ignazio La Russa, the defence minister prefers the terminology of a war between gangs, but he agrees on the target. "The only war we are waging is against the Camorra," he said. An editor of a local newspaper who asked not to be named said the government had been obliged to be seen responding to the violence, but he doubted the move would would tackle its roots which is the nexus of power between local politicians and the mob."This war is win-win for Berlusconi," he said. Some local politicians "up to their necks" in the Mafia might be sacrificed but they would be replaced. Further south in Calabria, Nicola Gratteri, an anti-mafia prosecutor, was involved in co-ordinated raids last month against drug traffickers in Italy, the US, Mexico and Guatemala.More than 16 tonnes of cocaine were seized and 200 people held, including 16 suspected members of the 'Ndrangheta Mafia clans based in Calabria who control the flow of Colombian cocaine into Europe.Mr Gratteri said Colombian drug lords were outsourcing their distribution to Mexican gangs to feed the US and European markets, where in turn the 'Ndrangheta supply the Camorra around Naples.Organised as an impenetrable, cell-like structure of families, the 'Ndrangheta have grown into Europe's most powerful criminal network, controlling businesses and politicians and influencing local elections.Apart from the occasional vendetta exploding into public, the 'Ndrangheta tend to keep a lower profile than the Camorra and avoid direct confrontation with the state.Sending in the army is not an effective tool, says Mr Gratteri. "Checkpoints are not the answer. It doesn't matter whether it is the Carabinieri police or the army." To make his point, he shows where a bug was found in a store-room next to the guarded office where he and colleagues used to have what they thought were confidential conversations."The Mafia are different. They organise themselves, create their rules and also have a consensus among part of the population. Checkpoints have a good psychological effect but they do not give results."His biggest weapon is telephone intercepts. They are cheap and simple. He says the city has one of the most effective monitoring systems in the world, tapping more than 1,000 people."Investigations are the answer but to carry them out you need time, months, years," he says. "So it is important to raise the number of people employed."Contrary to checkpoints, to fight against the Mafia one must camouflage oneself, forget to exist, disappear . . not with cameras and journalists who follow you around."

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Estepona corruption Carlos Barientos,charged with bribery and money laundering

Carlos Barientos,charged with bribery and money laundering. The ex Mayor has already been held on remand in prison for four months. His cousin Carlos told the judge on Tuesday about several municipal decisions in which alleged payments of backhanders are under investigation.The current councillor for beaches, Miguel Navarro, has now also been charged with perversion of the course of justice in the case.Statements were also taken from two local businessmen, Aurelio Martin Simón, President of Costa del Sol Hipermercardos, who manages a Carrefour store in the town and who is promoting a new commercial centre, touted to be the largest in Spain.Owner of the Publiluna company, Francisco Antonio Navarro, also now faces charges of perversion of the course of justice and money laundering.

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Four Liverpool gangsters were being held on the Costa del Sol accused of the shooting Marvin Herbert

Four Britons were being held on the Costa del Sol today accused of the shooting of a Liverpool man last month.Beachfront bar security boss Marvin Herbert was gunned down on September 24 at Puerto Banus, the millionaires’ yacht marina on the edge of Marbella.The 33-year-old was shot five times in the eye, the groin, pelvis, right leg and right arm.He was attacked in broad daylight by a lone gunman in front of dozens of witnesses.Herbert remains in hospital after a series of operations.
Police immediately said they believed the attack was a “settling of scores” related to drug trafficking.Puerto Banus and nearby Nueva Andalucia is a favourite hang-out for British and other international “costa crooks”.Herbert is said to have spent several hours drinking coffee alone on the terrace of Solly’s Diner in Puerto Banus before the shooting.At the time sources suggested the attack could have been revenge for the shooting of another Liverpool man in Marbella.Several other tit-for-tat shootings have taken place in the resorts in recent months.Numerous city gangsters are said to be in Spain, including some with links to murders such as that of Colin Smith, Curtis Warren’s former right-hand man shot dead in Speke last November

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Kirby Archer, the Arkansas man who admitted killing four people aboard the Joe Cool charter boat on the high seas last year, on Tuesday was sentenced

Kirby Archer, the Arkansas man who admitted killing four people aboard the Joe Cool charter boat on the high seas last year, on Tuesday was sentenced to life in prison -- five times. Archer, 36, was given consecutive life terms by U.S. District Judge Paul Huck during a hearing in Miami federal court. He had pleaded guilty this summer to four murder counts and one conspiracy offense to take over the vessel, resulting in the deaths. Family members and friends sobbed during the emotional proceeding.
The judge's actions marked the end of one chapter in the mystery of how four members of the Miami Beach charter boat were shot and dumped at sea on Sept. 22, 2007.
A second defendant, Guillermo Zarabozo, 20, of Hialeah, will go to trial for the second time on murder and kidnapping charges in January after the judge declared a mistrial in the first trial. Zarabozo was convicted on only four counts of providing the gun used to kill the four people. But jurors deadlocked on whether he took part in their kidnapping and murder. Prosecutors contend that Zarabozo knew his accomplice planned to hijack the Joe Cool and use it to flee to Cuba at any cost to avoid arrest in the United States. Archer did not testify at Zarabozo's trial.
Archer's sentence came as no surprise since he had already pleaded guilty in July to murder and kidnapping charges to avoid a possible death sentence. At the time, family members told The Miami Herald they were satisfied with the guilty plea by Archer but had hoped prosecutors would go to trial to get the death penalty.
Killed in the incident were Jake Branam, 27; his wife, Kelley Branam, 30; Branam's half-brother, Scott Gamble, 35; and first mate Samuel Kairy, 27, all of Miami Beach.
A former U.S. Army guard from Strawberry, Ark., Archer ended up in Miami-Dade as a fugitive on the run for stealing $92,000 from a Wal-Mart where he worked. Archer looked up friends in Hialeah he had met while stationed at the Guantanamo Naval Base and hid out for months. On Sept. 22, 2007, he and Zarabozo showed up at the Miami Beach Marina and chartered the 47-foot sport-fishing boat for a one-way trip to Bimini. They paid $4,000 in cash. Something horrible happened during the trip. The Joe Cool was found drifting empty near the Bahamas -- everyone on board had disappeared. Archer and Zarabozo were found the next day by the Coast Guard drifting away on a raft. Neither the victims' bodies nor the murder weapons were recovered. Prosecutors say the two defendants intended to go to Cuba, where Archer wanted to hide from his fugitive arrest warrant. After Zarabozo and Archer were rescued at sea, both told the Coast Guard and FBI agents that Cuban hijackers killed the charter boat crew and later let the two men go free. But Zarabozo later told investigators that Archer reached into Zarabozo's bag on board the Joe Cool and grabbed his gun to kill the four victims -- before they both dumped the bodies into the Atlantic Ocean. The government's case was viewed at first as mainly circumstantial because it lacked the victims' bodies, murder weapons or other direct evidence to link the slayings to Archer and Zarabozo. But Zarabozo's admission implicating Archer for the killings bolstered the prosecution's case -- assuming he was going to testify against his accomplice at trial.

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Shooting of a Fink at Wooroloo, 55km east of Perth

Shooting of a motorcyclist at Wooroloo, 55km east of Perth, yesterday may be part of a dispute between rival motorcycle gangsThe man was riding his motorcyle on Great Eastern Highway at Wooroloo when he was shot about 3pm. He is under police guard at Royal Perth Hospital where he was last night reported to be in a serious but stable condition. The shooting follows information given to WA police last week police that an eastern states motorcycle gang, The Finks, was planning a move into WA.
The wounded man is believed to be a member of The Finks, and police say they were investigating possible links between the shooting and outlaw motorcycle groups.
More details are expected to be released at a police news conference today.
Police have set up a detour around the crime scene on Great Eastern Highway, which will remain closed until midday.

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Marvin Herbert shooting four Britons have been arrested

Four Britons have been arrested in connection with the latest shooting incident in Puerto Banús on September 24 of club security boss, Marvin Herbert, originally from Liverpool.Named by the police as 40 year old M.A.A., 62 year old K.A.A., 59 year old M.Z.S., and 40 year old M.L.K., all four are believed to have taken part in the attempted assassination. The victim was shot five times in his right eye, right leg, right arm, pelvis and genitals, and remains in hospital in a serious condition after undergoing surgery two times.The police operation in the case has now been named ‘Cristalino’ and considers the shooting to be drugs related.

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Australian backpacker Britt Lapthorne body found.

Body found off the coast of Dubrovnik is that of missing Australian backpacker Britt Lapthorne.Dubrovnik deputy police commander Ivan Kukrika has told a press conference that DNA analysis had confirmed the identity of the body. “DNA analysis has been completed in the capital, Zagreb,” he said.“According to the analysis, the body found in the sea on October 6th belongs to the missing Australian Britt Lapthorne.”
Ms Lapthorne, 21, from Melbourne, was last seen at a Dubrovnik nightclub in the early hours of September 18. Dubrovnik police crime squad chief Nikola Sakic said investigations were continuing into what happened to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) student.“We still wait for the complete results of the analysis and therefore it is too early to say about the cause of the death.”A local fisherman found the body in a cove near the town centre on Monday. Ms Lapthorne’s father Dale and brother Darren are in Dubrovnik, having travelled to the coastal tourist town in a bid to find her after she went missing. Her mother Elke stayed in Melbourne.
Croatian police had previously said the body was unlikely to be Ms Lapthorne because it was too badly decomposed. Yesterday, a detective assigned to the case from Zagreb told the family reports that the remains were those of a young female between 150 and 160 centimetres tall with blonde hair were incorrect.Ms Lapthorne was 152cm tall with blonde hair. In a similar case three years ago, Croatian police said a body found in the sea had probably been there for several months before it was confirmed to be that of murdered British backpacker Peter Rushton. Mr Rushton had vanished just five weeks earlier

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Tobago suspect arrested in the slaying of a Anna Sundsval and Oke Olsoon who were found hacked to death in their home

man was arrested Friday as a suspect in the slaying of a Swedish couple who were found hacked to death in their home in a tourist district of the normally placid southern Caribbean island of Tobago.The suspect, 32, was detained because he resembles a man seen leaving the home of the Swedish couple before the attack, which happened Thursday, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Fitzroy Frederick.
Authorities have not charged the suspect and investigators were still collecting DNA and other evidence at the crime scene, Frederick said.
Robbery appeared to be the motive in the slaying of Anna Sundsval and Oke Olsoon at their home in the Bon Accord area, said Nadir Khan, a senior police superintendent in the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.Sundsval, 62, and Olsoon, 73, were found with multiple slash wounds. The woman died at the scene and the man at a hospital later.The couple, who had visited the island for extended periods for years, arrived in Tobago on Sunday.Trinidad, the most industrialized island in the Caribbean, has struggled with violence for years, with more than 400 homicides so far in 2008. But Tobago is considered largely crime-free, with only two others slaying this year.

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Jacqueline Tennant, went missing a year ago whilst hiking in the north east of Mallorca.

Jacqueline Tennant, went missing a year ago whilst hiking in the north east of the Mallorca. Jacqueline, originally from Reading, had spent the summer working in the holiday resort of Ca’n Picafort and spent any of her free time and days off hiking round Mallorca. Just before midday on the day she went missing, she answered a mobile phone call from her resort manager, saying that she was almost at the top and that the view was fantastic. When she failed to turn up for work the following day, she was reported missing, but reaction from the security services was slow and her sister Monique flew to Palma to lead the search for her. Only recently she stated that she still has not given up hope of finding her sister one day. The two sisters had been due to fly to Jamaica to visit their father the week after Jacqueline disappeared. Their father has since died and never knew what had happened to his daughter.

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10 million files of pornographic images of children siezed in Malaga

In Andalucia, 37 arrests have been carried out and, apart from the ten in Málaga, eight homes have been searched in Seville, two in Huelva, three in Almería, five in Cádiz, four in Granada and two in Jaén. 10 million files of pornographic images of children, which have been described by Guardia Civil officers as nauseating, have been seized from ten individuals who have been arrested in the province, in one of the biggest operations against child pornography ever carried out in the country. More than 120 individuals have been arrested so far. Those accused in Malaga were set free with charges after testifying before investigators and will be recalled by the legal authorities. Police sources stated that arrests in the province started four days ago, after the magistrate’s court number five in Madrid sent out formal requests and arrest orders to the corresponding courts and the Violent and Specialised Crime Unit (UDEV) of the Provincial Police Force. Researchers from this group have made seven arrests in the capital and also in Velez-Malaga, Antequera and Nerja, and have searched a dozen homes where huge quantities of child pornography have been seized. The individuals arrested belong to a wide range of social groups, from waiters to building workers or caretakers, making it difficult for investigators to describe an accurate or reliable offender profile.Some 800 national policemen have participated in this operation, 210 homes have been inspected in 42 provinces, and paedophile files containing what is described as extremely hard material have been seized.

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Lauren Cullen, and her 14 year old daughter have died when crossing a flooded ravine in their car

Lauren Cullen, and her 14 year old daughter also called Lauren, have died when crossing a flooded ravine in their car at L’Olleria in Valencia.
When the two women saw they could not get across in their car, they tried on foot with two other British people who managed to survive.The tragedy happened at a place known as La Palmera at 8pm last night, and firemen recovered their bodies in the early hours of this morning some 1.5km away from where they had tried to cross the ‘barranco’.The storms in the Valencia area have dropped 60 litres of water per square metre in an hour, but more than 200 litres per square metre has fallen in the complete storm, causing flooding to tunnels, basements and garages in the city.

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Briton Tony King, could not have acted alone

Mother of Rocio Wanninkhof, the youngster from Mijas Costa who was murdered in October 1999, has called for a new court case because she thinks that the man found guilty of killing of her daughter, the Briton Tony King, could not have acted alone.
The family lawyer has made an application to the Málaga Provincial Court to re-open the case, basing his arguments on the evidence from the case in which King was found guilty. King was sentenced to 19 years in prison for the case, but the Wanninkhof family considers that two people would have been needed to carry out the crime and move the body. Lawyer Marcos García-Montes explained that they were not looking for new evidence, only to determine once and for all their ‘single obsession’ if Dolores Vázquez took part in the crime or not.She is the woman who was a family friend, and had a lesbian relationship with Rocio’s mother and who was initially found guilty of the murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2001. Later that verdict was deemed as unsafe and overturned by the Andalucian High Court.

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Cecilia Natalia Coria Olivares has died in Nerja after being stabbed 15 times by her former boyfriend

25-year-old Argentinean woman has died in Nerja after being stabbed 15 times by her former boyfriend, Hicham B. Cecilia Natalia Coria Olivares was attacked as she arrived for work in the town centre on Sunday morning.
The victim was a waitress in one of the cafés near the Church of San Salvador on the Balcón de Europa which is where her attacker surprised her at about 9.20 am as she was setting out tables on the terrace. He produced a large knife and stabbed her in the back puncturing a lung. As she tried to fend him off, she suffered additional injuries to her arms and was stabbed a total of 15 times. A passer-by took a chair from the café terrace and struck the man in an effort to stop him, at which point the assailant fled towards Plaza Cavana. Waiters and other staff from nearby businesses rushed to help the girl by using tablecloths to stem the blood flow. She was still alive and able to identify her aggressor, but the emergency services were unable to revive her and she died at the scene. Within a short time, the Guardia Civil arrested a 29-year-old Moroccan alleged to have been responsible and who is reported to have been under a court restraining order, prohibiting him from approaching the victim. The couple are reported to have ended a two-year relationship recently, since when he had been threatening her verbally and in text messages. Cecelia had reported her alleged killer to the police on three occasions, the last time the evening before she died, telling them that he had threatened her saying he was going to kill her “with a knife, a gun or the first thing he could find”. When asked by officers if she thought he would carry out his threat, she replied yes.

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Spanish police interrupted the wedding banquet of a suspected drug trafficker, detaining him and 10 guests

Spanish police interrupted the wedding banquet of a suspected drug trafficker, detaining him and 10 guests, police said Tuesday. Police used the wedding party in Madrid to capture all the suspects, most of whom were Colombian citizens. The ring was suspected of importing cocaine hidden in shipments of legal merchandise, distributing it in Spain and legalising the actions by using real companies as a cover. Nineteen other people were held earlier in Spain and Colombia. Spanish police took 250 kilos of cocaine in a previous phase of the operation, which was launched in 2006.

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Released Erden Vardar and Sahin Eren were detained on July 12th, 2006, in Huelva as they tried to smuggle 12 kilos of heroin into the country

National Court Judge Baltasar Garzon came under more fire from the press last week when it was revealed that two dangerous Turkish drug traffickers had been released from jail through an oversight on his part. The men walked free in July when their two-year provisional imprisonment ended and the judge failed to extend it. Erden Vardar and Sahin Eren were detained on July 12th, 2006, in Huelva as they tried to smuggle 12 kilos of heroin into the country. Their arrest led to the dismantling of one of the biggest heroin smuggling rings in which another Turk, one Croatian ten Spaniards were detained and 30 kilos of heroin were seized. Judge Garzon had just arrived back from a visit to Colombia where he had opened a seminar, just days before the two-year provisional sentence was due to end, and a few days later left Madrid again. He finally ordered the extension of the men;s provisional imprisonment a few days after it should have been done. As a result, their lawyer was able to get them out of jail. The judge said their release made no difference because they were still in the country and were due to appear in court again later this month

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Gary Glitter had made plans to start a new life on the Costa Del Sol

Gary Glitter has been threatened with a 1million pounds bounty on his head if he ever leaves the UK for Spain.Glitter had made plans to start a new life on the Costa Del Sol, but when gangland bosses heard of it, they vowed that they would kill him if he ever set foot in Spain.If Gary Glitter sets foot in Spain, hes dead. One of the biggest British gangsters in Spain is so concerned about him trying to start a new life over here he has offered 1million pounds to anyone who takes him out, Daily Star quoted a gangland source as saying.
What he has done to all those kids is just disgusting and he should be locked up for life. But as the courts have decided to set him free, people over here have decided to take the law into their own hands…and there are plenty of people who would be happy to kill him.The money is just a bonus. Most of the gangsters would be happy to bump him off for nothing, the source stated.Glitter, 64, was planning to buy a posh pad in Puerto Banus in Marbella, but was stopped by police from going to Spain via France last week, and a Foreign Travel Order was granted banning him from leaving the country.The area is a popular celebrity spot, and Glitter, real name Paul Gadd, had been hoping to lose himself among them, but the area also happens to house a number of families with young children, making drug barons and gangsters, who run the resort, want him out.There are a lot of guys out here who are violent men on the run from the police in the UK. They have nothing to lose by wiping out Glitter, the source revealed.No one wants him here and even though these are bad guys, they care about kids and they dont want him preying on the youngsters who come here for a nice holiday, the source added.Glitter has been banned from travelling to France or Spain by Ashford magistrates.

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Spanish radio station has published on its web site 2005 Spanish Defense Ministry intelligence report

Spanish radio station has published on its web site what it says is a 2005 Spanish Defense Ministry intelligence report - replete with official insignia and stamped "confidential" - that says Pakistan's premier intelligence service supplied the Taliban with explosives with which to assassinate senior Afghan officials.News reports say the Spanish government declined to comment on the document. Such silences usually speak for themselves.U.S. military and intelligence officials have long privately alleged that officials of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate continued supporting the Taliban after Islamabad officially ended its patronage of the Islamic movement following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The document published on the web site of Cadena Ser, Spain's main station for news and information, appears to be the first official report to enter the public domain that makes that allegation. There are more than 700 Spanish troops with NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.Pakistan has repeatedly denied ISI complicity with the Taliban post-Sept. 11, although the agency's director was replaced this week under pressure from the United States. The shakeup follows charges by unnamed U.S. officials that ISI operatives were involved in the July 2008 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul. The Afghan government also accused the ISI of complicity in a June 2008 attempt to assassinate President Hamid Karzai.
The document published by Cadena Ser is dated August 2005. It says that the ISI supplied improvised explosive devices to the Taliban "to assassinate high-level" Afghan government officials "from a distance.""They (Taliban) are going to place them (bombs) in vehicles although their targets have not been specified," says the document.The document says it "is possible" that the ISI was training Taliban fighters to use improvised explosive devices at camps inside Pakistan.
The use of the devices in Afghanistan was "inspired" by the use of similar bombs in Iraq, it says.

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Mario Santafede, was arrested in Barcelona

An alleged member of the Camorra mafia based in Naples, 55 year old Mario Santafede, was arrested in Barcelona in a joint operation between Spanish and Italian police.
The man has been hiding in Spain for some years and has allegedly been directing drug running operations from Latin America from here. Cocaine runs from Colombia and Ecuador have been at the centre of his operations.He has now been handed over to the National Court in Madrid where he will appear shortly, probably facing extradition to Italy where he is on the list of the country’s most-wanted.Mario Santafede member of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia detained in the car park of a luxury apartment in the northeastern city of Barcelona

A mafia suspect on the list of 100 most wanted fugitives in Italy has been arrested in Barcelona, Italian police said today.

Mario Santafede, 55, a member of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, was picked up in a joint raid carried out by Italian and Spanish police on a flat in a residential area of the city.Santafede, who is the object of an international arrest warrant, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in his absence for criminal association in connection with drug trafficking. He has been on the run since 2004.Spanish police working in cooperation with their Italian counterparts have arrested a suspected leader of Italy’s Camorra crime syndicate, the Interior Ministry said Saturday.Members of Spain’s elite special operations police moved in to detain Mario Santafede in the car park of a luxury apartment in the northeastern city of Barcelona on Friday evening, the ministry said in a statement.Santafede, 55, is wanted by Italian authorities for suspected cocaine smuggling from Colombia and Ecuador to the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Italy, the ministry said.
The suspect, who is thought by investigators to have close links with other Naples-based criminals, is also wanted in connection with at least three murders, the ministry said.Santafede, who was in possession of false Italian and British identity papers when arrested, had changed his appearance through exercise, the ministry said.
The suspect was expected to appear before a judge at the National Court in Madrid later Saturday prior to possible extradition to Italy, the ministry said.
Santafede is one several suspected Camorra leaders arrested in or near Barcelona in recent years. Police arrested Patrizio Bosti, who was on Italy’s list of 30 most-wanted criminals, while having dinner in Girona last month. Bosti, 49, had been on the run since 2005.
In February 2006, Raffaele Petrazzuolo was picked up in Barcelona and deported to Italy on suspicion of criminal activity and complicity with mob leaders.Also in 2006 a man identified only as Carmine R., 38, was detained in the seaside resort of Sitges, just outside Barcelona.

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Mercantile Court number one in Madrid has ordered Ryanair not to cancel any reservations made on its flights via the Spanish travel portal Rumbo.

Mercantile Court number one in Madrid has ordered Ryanair not to cancel any reservations made on its flights via the Spanish travel portal Rumbo.The airline had last August insisted that reservations be made only via their own website and not through travel portals, threatening to cancel any reservations made elsewhere without notice. Now however the court has ordered the company to remove that clause from their website and to honour such bookings.

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GANGWAR has broken out between Britain's most powerful cocaine gangs on the Spanish Costas.

GANGWAR has broken out between Britain's most powerful cocaine gangs in the Spanish Costas.A club security boss was shot five times in a bungled hit in the millionaires' paradise of Marbella this week as coke barons wrestle for control of the UK's £2billion-a-year trade.Last month a known contract killer was murdered in Spain while an Irish hitman was stabbed in the shoulder.In the latest attack, the security boss from Liverpool was blasted in the face, arms and pelvis by a man who is also thought to be from Merseyside.He remains in a serious condition in intensive care. The bloodbath follows the murder of Britain's top drugs trafficker, Colin "Smigger" Smith in Liverpool last November. Underworld sources say he was shot on the orders of two former associates, one known as the Bird of Prey. The pair are now trying to take control of his empire, which he ran out of the resort of Puerto Banus in Marbella.In the past month, gangsters loyal to Smith have sought revenge.
They include a shadowy group of former IRA hitmen known as The Cleaners.But before they could strike one of their gunmen was killed said to be by the Bird of Prey.

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Kelly-Anne Corcoran was subjected to violence from her husband, Dermot McArdle

Kelly-Anne Corcoran was subjected to violence from her husband, Dermot McArdle, but stayed because she loved him, said Caroline Moran, Kelly-Anne's sister. She said there were "signs of violence" in the relationship and McArdle was aggressive with Kelly-Anne. Caroline Moran said that he sometimes pulled her hair and hit her.
"Kelly-Anne always obeyed him, she did it for a quiet life," Ms Moran said. "She loved Dermot, she was prepared to take it." McArdle denies throwing his wife of five years from the balcony of their Spanish hotel room on February 11, 2000. In an emotional address, Caroline Moran told the court of an incident after her sister's death when she was shopping with a friend in Drogheda and they picked up the accused's children in the car. While they were driving and talking, she said: "Mark [the couple's son] got very distressed and annoyed in himself and then Mark said: 'Daddy is a bold boy, Daddy hit Mammy and pushed Mammy down'.
"I didn't know what to think, I didn't know what happened," Ms Moran said. "I still don't know what happened, eight years later. I want justice for Kelly-Anne, I want to know what happened to her, why she came to Spain on a holiday and never came home." She also said her family had to "fight and plead" with McArdle to be allowed see Kelly-Anne in the coffin. Asked about the defendant's attitude after his wife's death, she said: "I never seen him cry, he showed no emotion, no feelings, no love towards Kelly-Anne." Ms Moran said at the funeral, she put her hand on her sister's head in the coffin and the accused came over and said: "get your effing hand off her head". She said when the accused gave her a prayer to say at the mass, he told her: "If you are going to cry, don't do it, I'll get someone else." In cross-examination, she said the couple were "very tight for money" as they were building a new house. Brigid Lowndes, another sister, told the court Kelly-Anne came to her house one night after a row with the defendant. She showed up in her nightdress, a jacket and no shoes. Ms Lowndes said at the funeral, she was putting a card into the coffin in memory of her other sister Kathy who died in a car accident, when the accused asked her: "what the f**k are you doing?" One night when they met, the accused told Ms Lowndes he was buying a new BMW. "I said why and he said it's what Kelly-Anne would have wanted," she told the court. She said McArdle was "drinking and partying" at the funeral and showed no emotion. Maria Nolan, a friend of Kelly-Anne, said she thought the accused had been "very domineering". Asked if Kelly-Anne ever displayed suicidal behaviour, she said: "absolutely not". She was shocked the accused became "so involved with a new car" after his wife's death. Peter Moran, Kelly-Anne's brother-in-law, said at the hospital in Malaga the accused told him that, "Kelly-Anne did not mean it and that she threw herself over the balcony."
When the couple's child Mark said, "Daddy pushed Mammy," Mr Moran "was confused" and "didn't know whether Dermot was right and the child had misunderstood.
"I phoned Dermot McArdle a couple of weeks later and asked him to explain it to the family. He said to me I am not f**king telling those people, he said you tell them," Mr Moran said. Earlier the court had heard dramatic evidence as five words, uttered by a child hung in the air: "Daddy bold, Daddy pushed Mammy." A hushed Spanish court heard that Mark McArdle, aged just four at the time, spoke these words days after his mother Kelly-Anne's fatal plunge from a Costa del Sol hotel balcony. Members of the Corcoran family and their friends also described the accused as "aggressive" towards his wife during their marriage and unemotional after her death. They alleged he at first said Kelly-Anne "threw herself" off the balcony, then gave different versions of what happened on the night of her fall. McArdle, of Haggardstown, Dundalk, denies murdering his wife Kelly-Anne (28) at the four-star Don Pepe hotel in Marbella, insisting it was an accident. She was rushed to hospital after the horrific plunge but died the following day

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Steven Waddington fell to his death from a sixth-floor balcony during his honeymoon in Spain

Bride whose husband fell to his death from a sixth-floor balcony during their honeymoon in Spain is preparing to fly home with his body, it emerged yesterday.
Steven and Sarah Waddington, from Hollin, near Middleton in Greater Manchester, were in Benalmádena on the Costa del Sol. They married six weeks ago after an 18-month engagement.Mrs Waddington, a 28-year-old health worker, was said to have walked into their hotel room on Saturday night to find her husband hanging from the balcony rail, crying for help. Mr Waddington, 35, lost his grip and fell. It is thought that he had spent the night drinking in their hotel."We were in love and I will never ever be able to get over this loss," said Sarah Waddington. "Nobody could ever take away this pain. We don't deserve this, it's so unfair. Steven was so popular. He just brought a ray of sunshine into all our lives. He would do anything for anyone and he was like a big brother to a lot of people." The couple lived with their adopted daughter Caragh, 14, Sarah Waddington's cousin, and her son, Harry, who is three. Caragh, whose mother died of cancer in 2004, said: "Steven was the perfect father figure to me and Harry."Steven Waddington, a former pupil of Langley primary and Queen Elizabeth high school, was a talented amateur boxer. Nicknamed The Whip, he won a British super middleweight title in August. Sarah Waddington's best friend, Clare Lancaster, said: "He was the happiest he had ever been and so in love with his beautiful wife, Sarah, and children Harry and Caragh." Terry Ham, a friend and fellow boxer said: "I'm going to miss our training together and our arguments, even when we were both in the wrong, but the next day we would both be in the pub drinking together the best of mates."Thinking of it all now not only brings a tear to my eye, but also makes me laugh. All the boys and my family are truly upset like you can't believe ... Life will never be the same without my spar."
Waddington was described by his employer, Danny Hornsby, as a "sound" amateur boxer.
"I'd known Steven for a couple of years. He was a popular lad and a sound boxer," he said. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said it was looking into the incident.

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Madrid authorities outlawed the Latin Kings in 2007, liberal Catalonia took the opposite approach, giving them the status of a cultural association.

Spanish branch of the Latin Kings was launched in 2000 by the young Ecuadorian Eric Velastegui, known as King Wolverine, who is now serving a prison sentence for rape.
US leaders of the Latin Kings visiting Spain, however, have downplayed the group's violent reputation, and evidence from the north-eastern region of Catalonia suggests that such gangs have the potential of being transformed into constructive social forces. The Latin Kings' big rival in Spain are the Netas, a gang founded in the prisons of Puerto Rico in the 1970s. Other gangs include Dominican Don't Play (DDP), many of whose members come from the Dominican Republic. The Madrid DDP has begun to sell drugs and acquired firearms, the daily El Pais reported. Recently, evidence has even emerged of the presence in Catalonia of the Mara Salvatrucha and the Mara 18, Central American groups known for their extreme violence. In the Madrid region alone, the number of gang members tripled in three years to about 1,300 by 2007, police estimated. Nearly 300 of them were regarded as violent. The main gangs, which are present in several cities across Spain, are hierarchically structured, tribe-like organizations. They are characterized by mystical symbols, an ethos of religiosity and machoism, and an ideology of defending the Latin American identity against an environment perceived as racist and hostile. The Latin Kings, for instance, wear rap-style clothes and black-and-gold bead necklaces. Their symbol of a five-point crown represents respect, honesty, unity, knowledge and love.
The gangs tend to place women in a secondary role, with the Latin Kings as the only one to have a female section. Many of the gangs have a double nature, with leisure activities such as football alternating with robberies or extortion which new members can be ordered to commit as a kind of initiation rite. Dozens of gang members have been detained on charges ranging from kidnappings and threats to attacks and killings. Most of the violence takes place between rival gangs, but former members have also told courts about the beatings faced by those who break the internal rules. "We were told to pay 1,200 euros (1,700 dollars), or we'd be burned alive," two girls who had tried to leave the Latin Kings told a Madrid judge.
The growth of the gangs is based on the rapid increase of Latin American immigration to Spain. The overall number of immigrants has soared from 1.8 per cent of the Spanish population in 1990 to more than 10 per cent. The largest groups include 420,000 Ecuadorians and 260,000 Colombians. "Immigrants never see their children, because they work 23 hours a day. The kids are on the street, in search of a (new) family," King Mission, a US representative of the Latin Kings, explained during a visit to Spain. Gangs like the Latin Kings also give a sense of purpose and self-esteem to youths who may come from neighbourhoods riddled with gang violence in their own countries, grew up without their parents who emigrated before them, and who are now struggling with the difficulties of adapting to a foreign culture.
In 2007, Latin street gangs did not commit any killings in Spain for the first time in several years. The decline was attributed to police crackdowns and, in some regions, to attempts to integrate the gangs into Spanish society.
While the conservative Madrid authorities outlawed the Latin Kings in 2007, liberal Catalonia took the opposite approach, giving them the status of a cultural association. Representatives of the Latin Kings and Netas even visited the regional parliament, explaining to legislators that they were planning to make joint musical recordings to bury their hostilities. International experts on street gangs have hailed Catalonia's ground-breaking approach, but it has not entirely eradicated inter-gang violence.

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Spanish ABC newspaper reported that during intercepted telephone calls between Tambov gang leaders Gennady Petrov and Leonid Khristoforov,

The Tambov gang hails from St. Petersburg and takes its name from the city in southwest Russia that its founders were born in. It is thought to have several hundred active members. Twenty Russians suspected of being members of the gang and involved in laundering the proceeds from organized crime were arrested by Spanish police in June in Madrid and Barcelona, as well as Malaga, Valencia and the Balearic Islands.
Spanish ABC newspaper reported that during intercepted telephone calls between Tambov gang leaders Gennady Petrov and Leonid Khristoforov, the Russian mafia bosses bragged about paying "some 50 million" to ensure that Zenit would win their games against Bayern and Rangers. Neither the currency involved, nor the exact methods used to 'fix' the games were stated. It is also not clear what the gang had to gain from their alleged fixing of the results.
Accusations of match-fixing are common in Russian soccer, but the claims exclusively involve domestic games. Bayern's goalkeeper in their 4-0 defeat in St. Petersburg was the legendary Oliver Kahn. The German keeper retired from soccer at the end of last season, and had often stated that he dreamt of taking his bow in the UEFA Cup final. "There have been a number of media reports quoting various sources in Spain that concern the reputation of FC Zenit. The performances by Zenit in the games against Bayern and Rangers are the best proof that these victories were achieved in honest and uncompromising battles," a statement on the Zenit website read.
"At the moment, Zenit's lawyers are evaluating the context of the original publications," the statement added. The press secretary for state-run energy giant Gazprom, which has a controlling stake in Zenit, added that there was "no doubt that the victory was honest." He also said that at present, Gazprom lawyers are not involved in the bid to clear the club's name. "We know about this story and it is something that our investigations unit would obviously be keen to look into." "Allegations of this nature are always worrisome to hear. It is important that we find out what is factual and what is only speculation or part of a newspaper story," he added. Zenit's Dutch coach Dick Advocaat, who was also the Glasgow Rangers' manager from 1998-2002, told the Daily Record: "This is incredible. All I can say is, let them play the tapes so we can hear what has been said. Then everyone will know what a big lie it is. Everyone knows the simple truth - we had a better team than Rangers. That's why we won the UEFA Cup." "There is a lot of jealousy about what we have achieved with Zenit in such a short space of time. People don't like the fact that we have been so successful so quickly. But that has nothing to do with bribes or dirty money. It has everything to do with the quality of the players and coaching staff," he added. The vice-president of the Russian Football Union, Nikita Simonyan told the Sport Den Za Dnem website: "We are used to this kind of thing. Even some of our so-called fans have a tendency to see everything negatively. If we lose, we played badly. If we win, that means we bought the game. This is nonsense." "I've even heard stories about how we bought our Euro 2008 victory against Holland - I've been told the exact sum," he added, going on to say that clubs like Bayern Munich "don't play dirty matches." Ordinary Russian fans were also skeptical, with one supporter, Dmitry Dudenkov, telling RIA Novosti that the claims were "rubbish."
"We bought everything of course! The win against Holland, the ice-hockey world championships, and Dima Bilan's Eurovision victory!" he said.

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Case against Michael Dermot McArdle is underway at the Málaga Provincial Court.

Case against Michael Dermot McArdle is underway at the Málaga Provincial Court.
After a delay from Monday because of a bomb hoax at the provincial court building in Málaga, the case against the Irish man accused of throwing his wife to her death off a Marbella hotel balcony, finally got underway on Tuesday.39 year old Michael Dermot McArdle, from Dundalk, denied throwing his wife Kelly-Anne off the fourth floor balcony of the Melia Don Pepe hotel on February 11, 2000 after a row, saying she tripped and fell when she went to attend to her son.However a witness, who was staying in the adjacent room in the hotel, Roy Haines, told the court that he told McArdle to put the mother of two down when he heard noises and saw him lifting her above his head. He said he heard shouts of ‘help’ and that there had been no child on the balcony. Later he said McArdle came to his room with a child with him – the boy said simply ‘My Mummy is dead’.Spanish police said that McArdle first claimed his wife had committed suicide, before later changing his story saying she had fallen by accident.

young son of balcony death mum Kelly-Anne Corcoran told a relative after her death: "Daddy bold; Daddy pushed Mammy", a murder trial heard today.Kelly-Anne’s brother-in-law, Peter Moran, recounted to gardai what the boy said about his mother’s fatal fall from a Spanish hotel balcony. Det Sgt Brian Mohan gave evidence of the interview on the second day of the trial in Spain of Ms Corcoran’s husband Michael McArdle who is charged with her murder. The mother-of-two died after a horrific fall from the balcony of a four star apartment complex in Marbella in February 2000. Mr McArdle from Haggardstown, Dundalk denies his wife’s murder. He insists her fall was an accident. Malaga’s provincial court also heard today that a Spanish police officer who took the accused’s statement noted McArdle seemed calm and not like someone whose wife had just died. The accused was in court today with his sons who are now 10 and 11. His new girlfriend Clare Dollard was also with him and watched proceedings from the back of the mostly empty courtroom. Det Sgt Mohan told the judge and jury through a translator that “everyone was very upset” when he spoke to members of Kelly-Anne’s extended family, the Corcorans and the Morans.
Responding to questions by defence lawyer Luis Casaubon he said he was a friend of the Corcoran family but insisted he acted impartially and properly throughout his involvement in the investigations. Det Sgt Mohan explained he was attached to the crime unit at Dundalk Garda Station. He said he took several statements following requests from Interpol. Kelly-Anne’s sister Caroline Moran had telephoned him on February 12, 2000 and asked him to inform her mother of the tragic events in Spain as she did not want to do so herself. He told Interpol in his report to them that the Corcoran and Moran families had information that would assist the investigation.
Ms Moran’s husband Peter told him in an interview that one of Kelly-Anne’s children said to him a day or two after her death: “Daddy bold; Daddy pushed Mammy”.
Det Insp John O’Mahony, now a Chief Superintendent told the court of a mutual assistance request received by the gardai from the Spanish authorities in relation to the investigation. He said when the Spanish police travelled to Ireland to speak to Mr McArdle he found it “surprising” that the accused “all of a sudden didn’t want to speak”. He was surprised because Mr McArdle had agreed to be interviewed, he said. “His solicitor told me that he had changed his mind, I asked him again would he reconsider as there had been a number of discrepancies found by the Spanish police,” Chief Supt O’Mahony said. “The solicitor went and spoke again to Mr McArdle and he came back a second time and said on legal advice he was not going to speak”.
Supt O’Mahony understood that the Spanish police in subsequent investigations had found a number of contradictions with Mr McArdle’s statement and now wanted to interview him to clarify those contradictions. Supt O’Mahony did not believe that Sgt Mohan had acted improperly adding “in fact it was his duty to have enquiries carried out”.

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Antonio Ordinas, the former head of the islands' public-run Economic Development Consortium (CDEIB), and his wife, the historian and opera singer Isab

Eight people were arrested in Majorca on Monday in the latest investigation of corruption by the previous Popular Party regional government of the Balearic Islands.
Antonio Ordinas, the former head of the islands' public-run Economic Development Consortium (CDEIB), and his wife, the historian and opera singer Isabel Rosselló, were arrested as key suspects in the case. Their home, a two-storey mansion with a seven-car garage outside Palma, was searched by police along with the offices of advertising firms and consultancies connected with Ordinas. The investigation involves illegal contracts, false accounting and theft at the CDEIB until 2007, when the PP administration of former premier Jaume Matas lost power, leaving a EUR 8 million loss in the CDEIB's accounts. The current investigation was started by the Socialist officials who took over the consortium and found EUR 17,000 in unexplained expenses charged by Ordinas. Further examination of accounts revealed false expenses and questionable contracts worth up to EUR 1 million. At least three other corruption cases were opened relating to Matas' rule.

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€16m of unregistered income from town planning licences issued between 2003 and 2004 by Estepona Town Hall

Inspectors working for Hacienda tax authorities in Spain appear to have unearthed around €16m of unregistered income from town planning licences issued between 2003 and 2004 by Estepona Town Hall, Costa del Sol, indicating potential VAT fraud.
The inspectors, who claim to have had their investigation hindered by the Town Hall, have now submitted the documentary evidence to the Prosecutors’ Office. Manuel Reina, a former politician, is responsible for the accounts, and is currently being detained in connection with the Astapa court case.

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The condition of Marvin Herbert who was shot five times in the street in Puerto Banús last week, is making progress

The condition of the British man, Marvin Herbert who was shot five times in the street in Puerto Banús on September 24 last week, is making progress in hospital according to sources at the Costa del Sol Hospital in Marbella.
Marvin Herbert is thought to have been the victim of a drug related settling of scores. He underwent surgery for the second time on Friday after being shot in his right eye, right leg, right arm, pelvis and genitals.Government sub-delegate, Hilario López Luna, says it’s thought the shooting was a drug related settling of scores. Police have already searched the victim’s home in Cancelada and say they will question him when he is released from hospital.The shooter, described as being young with a strong complexion, is still at large.Meanwhile the alleged shooter at an incident in the Nikki Club discotec has declared in court and been sent to prison on remand. He is also British and in his 30’s.

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Police officer from San Miguel de Salinas arrested for drug dealing on the Costa Blanca and Costa Calida .

court in Torrevieja has imprisoned three out of four people arrested for drug dealing on the Costa Blanca and Costa Calida .
One of the men is a police officer from San Miguel de Salinas . The group distributed the drugs to nightspots across the coast and the National Police described the haul as like a drugs supermarket .They also found all of the things needed for the preparation of the narcotics before sale , including acetone , gas , precision tools and a pill making machine .
All of this was found at the homes of the suspects in Los Montesinos .

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Ray Hegarty who laid carpets for Tony Blair, the Queen Mother and George W Bush has been charged with smuggling £4million of drugs.

Ray Hegarty who laid carpets for Tony Blair, the Queen Mother and George W Bush has been charged with smuggling £4million of drugs. Ray Hegarty enjoyed mugs of tea with the Prime Minister when he refurbished No10 three years ago. ASJ Carpet Planners, based in Mitcham, south London, have employed the 47-year-old for 30 years. He was arrested by Customs officers at Dover a year ago behind the wheel of a truck he had driven from Spain. They have accused him of having 2.5 tons of cannabis hidden inside. He was released on bail but has been charged with importing drugs and will go on trial in March.

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Briton was held in jail on Spain's Costa del Sol yesterday accused of spraying Nikki Beach club with gunfire.

Briton was being held on Spain's Costa del Sol yesterday accused of spraying a disco with gunfire. The man in his 30s, who has not been named, was remanded in custody by a judge in Marbella. He is alleged to have fired during a pitched battle at the crowded Nikki Beach club last month in which a man was shot in the leg.

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Johannes Cornelis Smeding,and 38 other Dutch and Norwegian suspects are alleged to have smuggled 300 kilograms of marijuana into Norway

Johannes Cornelis Smeding, 50, was detained on Thursday afternoon in the seaside resort of Pattaya, which is notorious for crime and prostitution.
He and 38 other Dutch and Norwegian suspects are alleged to have smuggled 300 kilograms of marijuana and other drugs into Norway in Apr 2006. So far 26 alleged members of the gang have been arrested. 'He will be extradited to Norway soon as he faces no charges in Thailand,' Colonel Manad Sriwongsa, of Thai immigration police, said. Col. Manad said Smeding had entered Thailand soon after fleeing Norway in 2006. He married a Thai woman and had set up a bar business in Pattaya

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Bhamian Gayle, , shot Sarah Johnson as she spoke with intended target Jermaine Broughton DJ known as Hurricane Jermaine.

Bhamian Gayle, 23, of Ferndale Road, South Norwood, shot 32-year-old Sarah Johnson as she spoke with intended target Jermaine Broughton – a DJ known as Hurricane Jermaine.
Miss Johnson was hit by three bullets to her chest, arm and buttock but has since recovered.The Old Bailey heard Gayle told Mr Broughton he was a "dead man" at a soccer tournament the day before the August 27 shooting last year. Gayle and accomplice Robert Tate, 25, went looking for Mr Broughton at Virgo's nightclub on the Old Kent Road, where Gayle shot Miss Johnson by mistake.
The pair escaped, but three days later tried to find Broughton at another nightclub. They were arrested following a tip-off the next day.
The pair were convicted of attempted murder and possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life on Monday. Gayle was also convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.A sentencing date has not yet been set.

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Marvin Herbert,attacked in possible revenge attack for the shooting of another Liverpool man in Marbella last month.

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.His attacker calmly walked away and got into a waiting vehicle which sped off.Hilario Lopez, the Spanish Interior Ministry’s representative in Malaga, said the victim had a criminal record in Britain and the shooting was believed to be related to drug trafficking.sources suggest the attack could have been a revenge attack for the shooting of another Liverpool man in Marbella last month.Spanish police are investigating links to two other shootings of Irish gangsters believed to be linked to drugs disputes.Several other tit-for-tat shootings have taken place in the resorts in recent months.
One witness told Puerto Banus’s local daily newspaper Sur: “We thought it was a firework going off until we saw the man lying on the ground, his face destroyed and covered in blood. It was like a film, his body was convulsing, although he was able to say something.”Marbella and Puerto Banus have long attracted Liverpool criminals.Budget airlines fly from Manchester and Liverpool to nearby Malaga regularly.Numerous city gangsters are said to be in Spain, including some with links to high-profile murders such as that of Colin Smith, Curtis Warren’s former right-hand man shot dead in Speke last November.As the main gateway into Europe for cannabis smuggled across the Mediterranean from nearby Morocco, a number of Irish drug lords, Eastern European gangs and London criminals also base themselves on the so-called “Costa del Crime”.

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new whistleblowers' hotline to help catch benefit cheats living it up on the 'Costas' was launched today in Spain.

new whistleblowers' hotline to help catch benefit cheats living it up on the 'Costas' was launched today in Spain. In the first trial of its kind, ex-pats in Alicante who suspect benefit fraud will be able to report their concerns on a local number. Cases will be passed by the operator to investigators in the UK, who will also be able to draw on the team's on-the-ground intelligence. Anti-Benefit Fraud Minister, James Plaskitt said: "Most ex-pats are law-abiding and outraged by people who abuse the system. Helped by this hotline, the sun will now set on the cheats."
The cost of benefit fraud committed abroad is an estimated £93 million a year. It involves a range of scams such as people on means-tested benefits going abroad but not declaring their absence, an individual working while "sick" and legitimate payments taken over after the rightful recipient dies. The pilot will test the usage and quality of information provided and posters advertising the line will appear across Alicante from today. The initiative is part of a growing relationship between Spain and the UK on social security issues that already includes agreements to data-match and share death notifications. Later this week James Plaskitt will sign a Memorandum of Understanding to cement the Anglo-Spanish partnership. James Plaskitt added: "Benefit fraud is a crime no matter where it happens. We are forging strong relationships with governments across Europe to help us catch the thieves who pick our pockets from beyond our shores." The Spanish benefit fraud hotline number is 900 554 440. It is free and confidential and will initially operate 8am and 4pm, Monday to Friday. Of British ex-pats living in Spain, recent figures suggest seven in ten are based in the "Costas" region, with around 300,000 living in Alicante. The hotline will be run and funded by the Department for Work and Pensions, working with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

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British man with the initials MH is in a stable, but serious, condition following emergency surgery at the Costa del Sol Hospital in Marbella

British man (MH) is in a stable, but serious, condition following emergency surgery at the Costa del Sol Hospital in Marbella after being shot several times outside a busy shopping centre on the calle Ramón Areces in the exclusive Puerto Banús district at around 7.30pm yesterday evening. The victim, who is believed to have been in trouble with the police back home in the UK, was hit in the right eye, the genitals, the right leg, right arm and pelvis. It is suspected that the attack may have been drug related. The shooter, who is described as a powerfully built young man, fled the scene after the attack, and remains at large.

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Liverpool Lad survives being blasted in the face, leg, arm, pelvis and genitals

The Liverpool expat,in his 30s , was blasted in the face, leg, arm, pelvis and genitals as he left a restaurant.It was the third shooting in the Costa del Sol resort in five weeks, and took place just yards from packed bars and shops.
The victim was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery but amazingly survived.
He had just left Solly's Diner, a British restaurant in Puerto Banus, and was about to get into his dark blue BMW when he was shot in broad daylight at 7.30pm last night.The gunman approached him, pulled out a weapon and shot him five times before walking calmly away, witnesses said.The victim collapsed on the floor in a pool of blood as panic broke out among people drinking or shopping nearby.Incredibly, he was still conscious and able to mutter a few words when an ambulance arrived 15 minutes later. One witness told a local newspaper: "We thought they were fireworks until we saw the victim on the ground, with his face destroyed, full of blood."It was like a film his body was convulsing, but he managed to utter a few words." A police source said it was "a miracle" that he had survived the shooting.One report said the gunman was also thought to be British.He walked away "in complete calm" then got into a waiting getaway car, a witness said.The shooting is being investigated by police from Malaga's Anti-Drug and Organised Crime Unit UDYCO.Forensic teams spent yesterday evening searching the scene for clues while detectives began studying CCTV footage.Local reports said the victim had lived in Marbella for several years.
One witness said the victim had sat drinking coffee for several hours on the terrace of Solly's Diner before he was shot.He said: "He sat on his own with a coffee. He was talking constantly on his mobile. Once in a while he got up, walked up and down the street and then sat down again."
A spokeswoman for the Costa del Sol hospital said: "The man suffered multiple gunshot wounds in his right leg, pelvis, genitals, right arm and right eye.
"He was operated on during Wednesday night and he in now in intensive care in a serious but stable condition." A spokesman for the National Police in Marbella said: "We are investigating a shooting in Puerto Banus but cannot give out any more information at this stage.Detectives are investigating possible links to two recent shootings in Marbella.Three people were injured in a shootout in the Aloha Gardens restaurant on 21 August.And two more were injured in another shooting at the Nikki Beach nightclub on 22 August.

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Marbella resident in his 30's from Liverpool shot in Puerto Banus

Police and forensic experts inspect the scene of the shooting in Puerto Banús last night 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.

The victim was said by witnesses to be a man in his 30's from Liverpool who has been resident in Marbella for some years. 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.

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Torrevieja Guardia Civil has broken up an international gang which had been pirating British satellite television signals

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

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Liverpool man Marbella resident five shots were fired in the Peurto Banus hitting the man in the face

The victim was said by witnesses to be a man in his 30's from Liverpool who has been resident in Marbella for some years.
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.

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Authorities in Fuengirola are to bring charges against the company responsible for carrying out roadworks on the access approach

Authorities in Fuengirola are to bring charges against the company responsible for carrying out roadworks on the access approach roundabout to the popular Miramar shopping centre. The action has been brought following an incident which occurred after two pipes from the drainage system burst open, allowing the outflowing water to mix with sewage material and carry waste and toxic substances into the Rio Fuengirola. This has resulted in the death of numerous fish and animals in the surrounding area.The local council reacted swiftly by banning bathing on the nearby Castillo beach, raising the red flag and restricting access to the coastline for 100 metres on each side of the river. According to the council, the clean-up operation was supervised by the local healthcare authorities, and municipal workers were employed to block the mouth of the river and to recover the dead animals. The councillors responsible for the maintenance of beaches, housing and the environment, Isabel Moreno, Ana Mula and Jesus Pascual, respectively, visited the area to oversee the clean-up operation and assess the environmental impact . Mijas Town Hall expressed concern that the roadworks had caused the pipes, which run parallel to the sewer, to fracture, which subsequently allowed the dirty water to seep in.
The construction company has managed to block one of the pipes and is currently working to cleanse the area and repair the second pipe.

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Two Chileans, about to board a flight to Spain, and one Immigrations inspector were arrested

Two Chileans, about to board a flight to Spain, and one Immigrations inspector were arrested on Friday evening. Yesterday morning, three more arrests were made of another inspector and one customer service officer, as well as an Argentine lawyer.
Airport Security Police (PSA) trustee Marcelo Saín revealed at midday yesterday that the Immigrations customer service officer was the “ringleader” of the drug trafficing group.A separate PSA source revealed how the smuggling operation was carried out: “Immigrations employees made contact with the ‘mules’ after they passed through security checks.

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Possible compensation for the families of 130,000 people who disappeared in the Spanish Civil War edged closer

Possible compensation for the families of 130,000 people who disappeared in the Spanish Civil War edged closer yesterday as a judge was given the names of victims with the aim of starting a formal investigation. Court officials said 22 church and human rights groups handed to Judge Baltasar Garzon the names of 130,137 people contained in a dozen files, each the thickness of a telephone directory.
Judge Garzon, who tried to exile former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, had earlier requested the names with a view to launching a formal investigation into abuses committed during the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship of Gen Francisco Franco. Many of those who went missing were shot and buried in mass graves scattered across the country. If Garzon decides he has jurisdiction and enough evidence to open a criminal investigation to determine the circumstances of the deaths, it could lead to compensation for victims' families.
Prosecutors oppose an investigation due to a statute of limitations and because no charges can be made against former members of Franco's forces due to an amnesty law in 1977. But campaigners say the move is long overdue and that as Spain's Supreme Court has pursued atrocities by military regimes in Chile and Argentina, it should also do so in its own country. "Every crime possible against human rights was committed: genocide, forced disappearances and even war crimes. And it went on until the '50s, after the Nuremberg trials," said Fernando Magon, a lawyer acting for the groups. Although Franco died in 1975, successive governments preferred to forget the past and concentrate on transforming Spain from a poor dictatorship into a modern democracy.

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Royal Dutch Shell to warn it may not be able to meet contractual obligations on shipments of crude from the Niger Delta

Nigeria’s army said on Monday itwould continue to fight criminal gangs in the oil-producing Niger Delta, underlining the fragility of a ceasefire declared by the region’s main militant group.The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND)declared a temporary ceasefire on Sunday after a week of attackson oil platforms, pipelines, flow stations and gas plants in theheartland of Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry.The six days of violence cut Nigeria’s oil output by at least 150,000 barrels per day and forced Royal Dutch Shell(RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to warn it may not be able to meet contractual obligations on shipments of crude from the country.The army welcomed the ceasefire announcement but said thatits strategy of fighting a network of criminal gangs involved incrude oil theft and kidnappings for ransom in the Niger Deltaremained unchanged.“We are not at war, so the issue of a ceasefire does notarise,” said Brigadier-General Mohammed Yusuf, spokesman forNigeria’s defence headquarters.
“If the restive youths are actually ready to lay down theirarms, then we will change our tactics. If there is no crime,then we will change our tactics. All we want is peace for thedevelopment of the area,” he said.Security experts say a loose coalition of various armedgroups operate under the MEND franchise in the anarchic delta,where foreign oil firms including Shell, Chevron (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Total(TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Agip (ENI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) have interests.

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Boom time for the buccaneers, who can earn €1.5 million a time for their trouble.

Pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and AK-47s control the waters far out to sea; close to shore, the threat of Islamist suicide boats keeps captains watchful."It used to be a good place," says Mohamed Shoaib Siddiqui, the Pakistani master of the MV Golina, a rust bucket of a cargo ship loaded down with food desperately needed by Somalia's starving population."It was like Kenya with disco bars, nice hotels, a good life. Then the security situation changed. None of that is possible now."His 829km (510-mile) voyage from the Kenyan port of Mombasa was possible only by staying close to the guns and missiles of a naval escort.
As the master turns the vast hull of the Golina towards Mogadishu's harbour, a Canadian frigate armed with a 57mm cannon stands guard.Cdr Chris Dickinson scans the shoreline with high-powered binoculars from the bridge of Ville de Québec, watching for high-speed skiffs leaving the harbour. Anything that gets within 500 yards of the cargo ship or escort will be turned to driftwood within seconds."The threat here for us is small boats - a suicide boat or a boat armed with RPGs or small arms," he says.The ship's helicopter has been dispatched to make passes close to Mogadishu's pockmarked villas and bombed-out hotels looking for potential threats.
This is the only way humanitarian aid can be delivered to the world's most dangerous city.An estimated 8,000 people have died in the past year-and-a- half of conflict. Tens of thousands more have fled the capital.Last week, Islamist insurgents ordered the city's airport to close amid intelligence reports they had recently received a shipment of surface-to-air missiles.And it could be about to get much worse for Somalia's embattled population, which hovers close to famine. The Ville de Québec is due to return to Nato duties at the end of the week and aid officials are desperate to find another country to continue the escorts.Denise Brown, deputy Somalia director of the World Food Programme, says using land routes could only deliver about 10 per cent of the aid needed."We currently do not have a firm offer for any naval escort and we have 45,000 tonnes of food which needs to be distributed in October," she says. "We are expecting merchant captains to come back to us and say that they won't go in without an escort. It is crunch time."While almost half of Somalia's population needs emergency food aid, the country's armed entrepreneurs are busy exploiting the anarchy to earn hard currency. On land, they run protection rackets and roadblocks; at sea, they call themselves pirates, although they have little in common with the cutlass-wielding brigands of old.The power vacuum has allowed pirates to launch 55 attacks on vessels as they skirt the Horn of Africa this year. Shipowners are warning they may soon be forced to reroute their vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, increasing costs to consumers.
Pottengal Mukundan, director of the International Maritime Bureau based in London, says the frequency of attacks is unprecedented and could only be stemmed with international action."Somalia has no government able to deal with piracy. Neighbouring countries lack the resources to tackle this problem," he says. "The only forces that can do anything are coalition naval forces."A US-led naval taskforce, set up as part of "Operation Enduring Freedom" to tackle terrorism, has been given responsibility for trying to keep the sea lanes open.They have established a series of waypoints marking a safe corridor through the Gulf of Aden, which is patrolled by warships and coalition aircraft overhead.And last week European Union foreign ministers announced plans to set up a co-ordination centre to help tackle the threat.But so far the billions of dollars of warships, with their radar, missiles and helicopters, seem powerless to halt the ragtag bands of pirates in simple, fast-moving skiffs.
The result is boom time for the buccaneers, who can earn €1.5 million a time for their trouble.Today there are thought to be 10 gangs operating around Somalia with as many as 1,000 members. Two years ago there were only 100 or so pirates.
In all, 13 ships are under the control of pirates. Two more vessels - a Greek cargo ship and a Hong Kong-flagged vessel - were snatched last week and attacks are being reported almost daily.

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Pirates attacked a record 17 ships in the Gulf of Aden in the first two weeks of September compared to just 10 in the entire year of 2007

throwback to 17th century days of Spanish galleons, Barbary pirates and avenging royal navies, pirates attacked a record 17 ships in the Gulf of Aden in the first two weeks of September compared to just 10 in the entire year of 2007, according to the Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting Center. "This is the highest number of piracy attacks we have seen in the past five years," said Cyrus Mody, manager of the London-based International Maritime Bureau (IMB) which runs the Piracy Reporting Center, the word's nodal anti-pirate organization. Mody estimates that around 1,000 active pirates in the region have increased attacks on shipping after shifting base from theeast coast of Africa to the Gulf of Aden, which yachties call "pirates' alley". The concern reached crisis level on September 18, with leading international shipping associations such as BIMCO, Intercargo and the International Transport Workers' Federation calling for urgent United Nations action, saying the situation is "in danger of spiralling completely and irretrievably out of control".
Shockingly for governments, pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia and Yemen are currently holding 11 ships and nearly 250 crew members hostage. Pirates are demanding and often getting ransoms from US$2 million to $9 million.
Replacing the Malacca Strait as the world's deadliest waters, the Gulf of Aden is spinning its own 21st century pirate story: multi-billion-dollar oil tankers, pirates defying navy patrols to capture ships and crews for fabulous ransoms and even two flourishing pirate towns. An Indian sailor, Maria Vijayan, who was held captive by Somalian pirates for 174 days, told Asia Times Online of the existence of a pirate town called Harardheere, 400 kilometers north of the capital Mogadishu.
Harardheere is a stronghold for hundreds of pirates and their families, and Cyrus Mody of the International Maritime Bureau confirmed its existence.
The other more well known modern pirate town is the port of Eyl in the Somalian region of Puntland, a modern day version of Tortuga, the 18th century Haitian island pirate town made more famous in the movie trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean .
Eyl is an infamous nest for Somali pirate-captured ships as well as a supporting industry feeding off an estimated $30 million in ransom booty that Gulf of Aden pirates bagged in 2007, a staggering indication of the extent of piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Vijayan was chief officer of one of two South Korean ships Mavuno I and Mavuno II that Somali pirates captured off Mogadishu at around 2.30 am on May 15, 2007. The pirates were heavily armed, on a high speed white vessel and began firing before boarding the ships. "We came to know of this pirate town because three South Korean crew members were taken there and imprisoned for 17 days," says Vijayan while narrating details of his harrowing nearly six-month captivity. "The pirates extracted $2 million dollars over a period of time from my company," says Vijayan, now rebuilding his life from his residence in Kanyakumari, in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The United States Navy finally rescued Vijayan and his badly traumatized crew on November 4 2007, after keeping continuous surveillance on the pirate-captured ships. The Indian government, Vijayan said, did nothing. The Somali pirates doing the actual daily dirty work are simple, poorly paid unemployed youth recruited from the interiors of civil war-torn Somalia, according to Vijayan. "I think they must be barely paid $20 or $30 for a piracy operation," he laughed, compared to the $2 million or more ransoms the pirate chief masterminds extort.
"The pirates are well-organized in groups of 15 to 20," says Vijayan, who did not rule out involvement of sections of the Somali army or warlords now tearing the country apart. How strongly the Gulf of Aden pirates have entrenched themselves became clear when, despite an American navy presence and successful French commando assault on September 15, Aden pirates the next day brazenly seized a Hong Kong and a South Korean flag-bearing ship. "The world cannot accept this ... today, these are no longer isolated cases but a genuine industry of crime," French President Nicolas Sarkozy had said a day earlier on September 15, after the French navy parachuted commandos to rescue an elderly French-Polynesian couple, Jean-Yves and Bernadette Delanne from Somali pirates. The world pays a high price to pirates terrorizing the Gulf of Aden. "3.3 million barrels of crude oil - nearly 4% of daily global demand - daily pass through the Gulf of Aden waters that is also a crucial access route for cargo ships from Asia to Europe and the US, " said Manoj Joy of the Chennai-based Sailors Helpline. "So going by these figures, the Gulf of Aden is becoming a gold mine for the pirates." A gold mine it is. Aden pirates freed a Spanish fishing boat after receiving a $1.2 million ransom this April. A German piracy victim Niels Stolberg told the weekly Der Spiegel that pirates had seized his ship 'BBC Trinidad' and its crew for three weeks, threatened to blow up the $23 million ship, demanded a ransom of $8 million and finally settled for $2 million. "The governments have to act very fast to save hostages," says Vijayan of the estimated 250 sailors of many countries now suffering hostage trauma. "Having experienced what it is to be held captive by pirates, I know what the victims must be going through." He says the Indian government and navy must get involved as thousands of Indian workers sail the Gulf waters. Indian seafarers are particularly aggrieved, complaining of government inaction even though Indian seamen are among the worst-hit piracy victims. While Vijayan gratefully acknowledges American and South Korean governments for rescuing him and his crew, he says that no Indian government official has met him, and more astonishingly, no one from the Indian Navy has interviewed him. Yet the Indian Navy, sans homework, has sought government permission to intervene after 18 Indian sailors were among the crew of 22 of the MT Stolt Valor, a chemical tanker carrying a Hong Kong flag that Aden pirates hijacked on September 16. Unconfirmed reports say the pirates are demanding a $9 million ransom. The Indian Navy finally announced plans on September 20 to patrol the Gulf of Aden, along with navy forces from other countries. "India is one of the largest suppliers of manpower to the global shipping industry and it is of paramount importance for the government to make sure their lives are safe," said Manoj Joy, of the Chennai-based Sailor's Helpline. "The seafarers are contributing in a big way to the Indian economy." Other Indian sailor associations are threatening to strike if the government does not effectively act soon. War-torn Somalia has allowed foreign warships to enter its territorial waters to tackle piracy, while the UN Security Council has passed a resolution letting naval vessels enter Somalia's territorial waters and repress piracy "by all necessary means". Successful multi-million dollar ransom demands are multiplying "copycat" pirate attacks, say International Maritime Bureau officials, with pirates running amuck in Somalia, which has had no functioning central government since former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was booted out in 1991.
Since trigger-happy, heavily-armed Gulf of Aden pirates also fire rocket-propelled grenades, fears increase of an oil tanker being blown up and throwing the crucial global trade waterway into a oil-spill nightmare. An IMB official said it's a "miracle" that no oil tanker has been hit with rocket fire. The IMB website has published two photographs of three white-painted pirate "mother ships", said to be Russian-made trawlers and a tugboat that pirate gangs use as base to launch fast, inflatable boats for attacking victim ships. Seafarer associations globally also say that ship owners are not doing enough to protect their vessels and crew, and must invest in better security, a few thousand dollars to protect lives and avoid paying million dollar ransoms. The IMB recommends that ship owners use latest security systems such "Secure-Ship", a non-lethal, electrical fence to repel uninvited guests visiting with rocket launchers. Other Inmarsat and other satellite systems-based anti-piracy gizmos include the ShipLoc, which lets shipping companies easily track their vessels, as well as enabling an attacked crew to send a SOS. Though some governments are waking up to the Gulf of Aden piracy threat, there is little coordinated, sustained global action. Yemen and Oman, two Gulf of Aden countries, are discussing establishing a regional center to combat piracy. European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels this month created a crisis group to deal with future hijackings. Spain announced that it is sending a P-3 Orion military aircraft to patrol the waters off the coast of Somalia, while the US Navy and France have made clear they will not be handling pirates with kid gloves.
Cyrus Mody of the IMB says some governments unfortunately try to hide the piracy problem, partly to avoid fears of safety about their ports, fears that could affect trade interests, aid, grants or concessions they get.
"Either governments may accept piracy as a problem and deal with it," says Mody, "or they may try to suppress reports." In which case 21st century pirates have not to much to worry about, while the rest of the world increasingly does.

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Montreal Mafia trafficked drugs through the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport

Montreal Mafia apparently had their hands in half the pots in Montreal- threatening coffee shops that didn’t purchase their beans from their approved wholesalers, threatening non-Montreal contractors who did work in the city, and driving shops that didn’t comply with their demands out of business.They also trafficked drugs through the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport, involving employees in several levels and divisions of the airport. They brought hundreds of kilos of cocaine through the airport into Canada- enough to keep the Navy supplied for a few years, at least.
They also beat, severely, people who owed them money- gamblers and other people who owed them money. Notably, they beat up John Xanthoudakis, the CEO of a Norshield Financial Group, in a law office on Place Ville Marie, where apparently his face “opened like a pancake” and that he “was pissing blood”. Xanthoudakis, they claimed, owed them five million dollars. They also drove insurance broker and financial advisor Magdi Samaan to suicide, and forced his widow to remortgage her home to pay off the mobsters, who claimed that her husband had defrauded. funds from members of the Montreal Italian community. (via)While all of this is sordidly interesting so far, we have to wait until mid-October for the full charges and details, sadly. However, while these six have gone in through plea bargains, many other lower gang members will be working their way through the courts- so hopefully some of this information, and more, can be a part of the legal record.

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"go-fasters " – drug-traffickers who zoom in almost ostentatious convoys of three or four cars from Spain to large French cities

"go-fasters " – drug-traffickers who zoom in almost ostentatious convoys of three or four cars from Spain to large French cities .The drivers, often young men from the troubled multiracial suburbs of French cities, can earn as much as €50,000 (£40,000) for one dash at speeds of up to 200kph (120mph) from southern Spain to Paris, Marseilles, Lyons or Lille. The French police and gendarmerie have developed increasingly sophisticated methods of disrupting the smugglers, including the use of satellite tracking and the creation of fake traffic jams to try to bring the speeding cars to a halt. Twenty-two "go-fast convoys" were intercepted in France last year and four so far this year – but the authorities fear that these represent just a fraction of the total tradeTwenty-two "go-fast convoys" were intercepted in France last year and four so far this year – but the authorities fear that these represent just a fraction of the total trade. A French thriller film, Go Fast, based on the high-speed road smuggling business, will premiere on 1 October. In a book published this week, Au Coeur du Trafic, Bruno di Maio, 32, tells of his experiences as a "go-faster" who was never arrested by the French or Spanish police.
The term go-fast was originally applied by American authorities to the high-powered launches used by drug traffickers in the Caribbean. Similar methods were adopted by smugglers in the late 1990s to dodge customs and naval vessels in the Mediterranean and to move cannabis and cocaine from north Africa to Spain. The idea was extended to the roads about seven years ago and has become one of the principal means of transporting drugs to French cities in the past two years. The method might appear to be absurd. Why would traffickers want to draw attention to themselves by speeding along motorways at 200kph? By travelling at high-speed in convoy, the smugglers hope to make it too difficult, and too dangerous to the public, for the police to intervene. "Go fasters" usually stop dutifully at motorway toll booths but have sometimes smashed through the barriers if pursued by police. Their favoured cars – mostly stolen in Germany but sometimes bought – include Citroë*or Mercedes limousines, or top-of-the-range four-wheel drive "Chelsea tractors", fitted with extra fuel tanks to reduce stops at service stations.
"These people should not be romanticised," said a gendarmerie colonel, Marc de Tarlé. "They are thugs who are interested only in easy cash. They work for a few years, earn a fortune and retire." But there does seem to be an element of bravado or sport involved in the go-fast trade. French police say that many of the drivers are recruited from the young men who hold so-called "rodeos" – impromptu races with stolen cars – on roads close to the poorer tower-block suburbs of French cities.

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