Juan Antonio Roca allowed to walk away from jail in Málaga on bail of one million euros.

Juan Antonio Roca, who amassed a 200-million euro fortune after allegedly awarding building licences in exchange for money, has been on remand since his arrest on March 31, 2006.
Now, magistrate Óscar Pérez will allow him to walk away from jail in Málaga on bail of one million euros.Fears persist, however, that the former chaffeur turned town planning chief will flee Spain after the state prosecutor claimed he had clandestine bank accounts in tax havens around the globe. Explaining his decision to give bail, judge Óscar Pérez said: “Disregarding the reasonable suspicion that Roca has hidden funds abroad, he has important financial interests to defend here.
“Furthermore, he has a wife and children and he has always lived in Spain.”
After Roca’s arrest in Operation Malaya, police confiscated original works of art, a helicopter and even a stud farm – all apparently amassed during his time at the town hall of the resort, which is popular with the nouveua riche of northern Europe and Russia.So far, 86 people, including councillors, constructors and even a former professional footballer, have been arrested during the Malaya investigation.

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Britons with homes on the Costas are among those at risk from a £3.5 billion campaign by the environment ministry

"The state is destroying property without any concern for the law or human rights," said Mr Ortega."This will affect more than 500,000 people along the coast in Spain, of whom up to 100,000 are foreigners, including thousands of Britons. It is illegal and totally unfair. We already have 20,000 members whose homes are threatened with demolition."Announcing the plan last November, Cristina Narbona, the environment minister, attempted to placate owners by insisting: "We won't be demolishing entire developments, even if they breach the law."The latest government drive will do little to reassure homeowners in Spain who have been affected by a string of recent scandals. Local corruption and the flouting of planning laws have allowed swathes of Spanish coastline to be developed during the past decade.The owners of 4,500 illegally built homes in Marbella are still fighting in the courts to prevent them being bulldozed.In January on the Costa Almeria, Len and Helen Prior, a British couple, won widespread sympathy from the expatriate community after the home they had bought in good faith was torn down because it allegedly breached planning regulations. They are currently living in a caravan on the site of their former three-bedroom villa and have yet to receive compensation.

Britons with homes on the Costas are among those at risk from a £3.5 billion campaign by the environment ministry to restore and protect coastal areas from over-development."This is the single biggest assault on private property we have seen in the recent history of Spain," said José Ortega, a lawyer and the head of an action group launched in Madrid to challenge the Socialist government, which is using a 20-year-old law, the Ley de Costas (Coastal Law), to clear developments along 482 miles of coastline.Under the plan properties built within 550 yards of the beach could be confiscated by the state and in some cases demolished.Even homes constructed entirely legally decades ago are being targeted.
Clifford Carter, 59, recently discovered that the villa he and his Spanish wife, Maria, have owned since 1976 is under threat.Their villa is one of 75 in a seaside development on the Costa Blanca, 10 miles south of Valencia, that has now been "rezoned"."Out of the blue we received a letter... stating that the home we have owned for over 30 years had been confiscated," he said.
The couple, who spent holidays at the two-storey villa before selling their home in Croydon, south London, and retiring there four years ago, have been given permission to remain living there."Because we bought over 30 years ago we got a concession to stay in our home but our ownership has been taken away and we can't sell it even if we wanted to," he said, adding that they had hoped one day to leave the house to their two daughters. "The indication is that the house will be demolished but we haven't been told when," said the former electrical engineer.

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Huelva Angry crowds shouted Asesino and hurled bottles and stones as the detainees

The first one breaking the orders from the police was the grandfather of Mari Luz, Juan José Fernandez, a fact that gave more strength to the protesters. ‘You criminal murderer, you have to pay for what you did! The prison is not enough for you!’ this was one of the various sayings directed to Santiago del Valle the confessed killer of Mari Luz.



Santiago del Valle, the man arrested in connection with the death of five year old Mari Luz Cortés, arrived at the court in Huelva shortly after 5 on Thursday afternoon, where a crowd of some 600 people had been waiting outside since the early hours of the morning. The angry crowd shouted "Asesino!"[murderer] and hurled bottles and stones as the detainees, Santiago and his sister, arrived in police vans. The security fences that were serving as a barrier between the public and the court were used like throwing weapons. The police, who had send to the place several intervention teams, were forced to move against the crowd, with shots to the air and using their batons, trying to keep the order and disband the crowd , who were, besides throwing stones, doing fires in the streets and vandalizing several parked cars.During the uproar, two Spanish journalists, who were covering the story, were slightly injured. Izidro Huete, a cameraman from Cuatro Television [Channel 4], was hit in the head with a stone and had to be carried to a hospital to receive medical treatment. As well, a journalist from the radio Onda Cero was injured in the arms, in the middle of the crowd clash.
Between the screams and pushes, the rage of the relatives and neighbours mixed with a will of provoking chaos by a group of young persons from the El Torréjon district forced the authorities to expand the perimeter of security, closing all the streets that had a connection to the court.

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Mari Luz’s father, Juan José, forced his way into Santiago del Valle’s home, on the same day that Mari Luz disappeared

El Mundo reports that several people from the neighbourhood, including Mari Luz’s father, Juan José, and some of her uncles, forced their way into Santiago del Valle’s home, taking some papers on the same day that the child had vanished, knocking down the door in search of the youngster. This led the man who is now charged with the child’s murder to call the police for help. The police went to the home and initially thought it was a simple case of breaking and entering, deciding to put off making full enquires until the next day. When they returned, Santiago del Valle and his family had gone, and it was only some time later that police joined the dots in the case and realised that they were dealing with a known paedophile with a previous record.


Santiago del Valle García, the man arrested in connection with the death of five year old Mari Luz Cortés from Huelva, has been ordered to prison without bail by the judge in Instruction Court One in Huelva on charges of murder and against sexual freedom. The judge also told him that he must also serve the two years and nine month sentence handed down against him in 2006 by Penal Court One in Sevilla for abusing his own daughter.The judge also ordered prison without bail for Rosa del Valle, his sister who had also been arrested along with his wife and a brother. The wife, Isabel García, was released with charges after making her statement to the Instruction judge and is now reported to be staying outside Huelva province. Santiago and Rosa left the Huelva Provincial Court at a quarter to one this morning, bound for the jail in Huelva.Meanwhile the General Council for Judicial Power (CGPJ), the body which oversees the judiciary in Spain has opened an investigation as to why the alleged killer of Mari Luz had not served a single day in jail, despite two prison sentences against him. The latest was the firm 2 year 9 month sentence handed down against him by Penal Court One in Sevilla for the sexual abuse of his own five year old daughter. There was a second earlier sentence also, for two years in jail, handed down for the sexual abuse of a nine year old girl who he surprised on the stairs of her home, which he also somehow escaped serving.
It appears the official reason was that he was ‘whereabouts unknown' and had also appealed against the second sentence which had allowed him to avoid being placed inside. He had claimed that it was a gymnastics teacher who had abused his daughter, and not him, presenting a fake medical report at the time to support his case.

The court documents from Sevilla at the time make dramatic reading. Público quotes them as saying ‘On several occasions the accused, dropping his trousers, would make his daughter touch his member with her hands, and on other occasions he would masturbate while he touched her genital region. The mother was often present while this took place, and despite the opposition of the child who complained to her father that it hurt, never did anything to stop it taking place’. The court documents note that the mother, Isabel García, has an I.Q. of only 47, and she was clearly under the manipulative influence of her husband. The Sevilla court documents also indicate that Santiago del Valle suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, but also that the judge considered that when he abused his daughter he knew exactly what he was doing. The couple’s two daughters, now aged 9 and 15, are in the care of foster families. There is also a third case of a 13 year old girl in Gijón, against whom he was handed down a distancing order after he had been chatting to her on the internet and proposed sexual relations. The girl’s mother discovered the plan and informed the police in that case.The Government Delegate for Andalucía, Juan José López Garzón, commented that it was not for the police or the government to comment on the situation, and he was not going to make a judgement. He called for calm from the local population. However López Garzón did not deny that there was a search and capture order in place against Santiago del Valle since 2006. It appears that the Police investigators into the Mari Luz case knew nothing of this however, and were unaware that he lived less than 100 metres away from where she disappeared. However the local residents of this tight-knit community did know about Santiago del Valle’s past, and a few hours after Mari Luz vanished they had informed the missing girl’s parents.

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The parents of Mari Luz suspected this man from the first moment. Juan José Cortés, said this morning: “We know that it is him, we are sure, and this

The parents of Mari Luz suspected this man from the first moment. Juan José Cortés, said this morning: “We know that it is him, we are sure, and this is no surprise to me”One of the suspects of the death of Mari Luz confessed today to the Spanish police that the girl died in an accident, falling down the stairs. Santiago del Valle García also said that the girl went with him to his house willingly. The man is one of three neighbours of the Cortés family detained yesterday in the afternoon by the Spanish police and he had already a previous record as a paedophile.His wife, Isabel García, has also been arrested, although initially there is no suspicion that she has intervened in the actions, but only to interrogate her. This man was the number one suspect of the homicide since the first moment, mainly because the little girl was last seen alive while walking in front of his house, in the same neighbourhood, El Torrejon, where she resided with her family. Mari Luz disappeared on January 13, when she went to buy sweets at a kiosk. The sister of the suspect was freed meantime. The couple keeps on being questioned.
The principal suspect of the death of Mari Luz lived a few meters away from the Cortés family. The man went away from the district the following day after the disappearance of the child, with fear of retaliations. The Police, later on, found and questioned Santiago in Granada. He was detained some days later after the arrest, but was released at that time since there was no sufficient proof to indict him.
The police arrested him again yesterday in Pajaroncillo, a village of 100 inhabitants in the hills of Cuenca, hundreds of kilometres away of Huelva, together with his wife, Isabel, and sister. This arrest was done as a result of new evidence arising from the autopsy carried out on Mari Luz Cortés. He had travelled there, to receive his monthly pension, according to police sources. After his initial statement, during which he confessed to the crime, he now assures that the child "fell" and accidentally died. Frightened and with fear of being incriminated, he launched Mari Luz body to the river Huelva.
The 52-year-old man, Santiago del Valle García, had already been arrested for paedophilia and sexual abuses, including to one of his daughters, which was the motive why a judge had issued an order to keep the child at a distance from her father, to prevent him from harassing her again, according to police sources. The Spanish authorities suspect that the cause of the crime has a sexual nature. In 2002, Santiago was convicted by a court in Sevilla of continued sexual abuse against his own daughter, he tried to accuse the gymnastics teacher of abusing his 5 year old daughter and claimed compensations of 60.100 euros.He was condemned to 2 years and 9 months of imprisonment. In a later audience in the year of 2006, a judge considered that Santiago suffered 75% of paranoid schizophrenia and that his wife, Isabel suffered 65%. They children, a girl who has now 15 and a 9 year old boy, were taken from their custody and were sent to a 'foster' care family.

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Algerian gang based in Malaga

Suspects are thought to be responsible for more than 300 crimes, including robberies with violence at domestic properties, document falsification, drug trafficking, crimes using stolen credit cards and conspiracy. The Guardia targeted the suspects by studying documentation seized in several raids. The gang was identified as being made up of 14 Algerians, six Spanish, Four Morrocans and one French person. The gang was divided into three cells directed by an Algerian head based in Malaga. In and around Cieza, in Murcia, the Guardia Civil carried out three operations which resulted in the recent arrest of five people thought to be involved in 21 robberies with violence at homes. A major operation took place in Cartagena recently when some 40 officers of the National Police swarmed the streets of the suburb of Lo Campana in an anti-drugs operation targeted at three families said to be drug traffickers in control of a large part of the illegal market. The three families are said to have cooperated closely and offered drugs on a menu system with fixed prices.

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Operation Toroyano a fishing boat carrying drugs was intercepted close to the shoreline

Puerto de Mazarrón, a major case involves the alleged smuggling of huge quantities of drugs coming in from North Africa. The criminal activities are said to have involved drugs being carried by large vessels sailing up the Mediterranean. The drugs were then dropped off onto fishing boats which brought them into Puerto de Mazarrón. The network is said to have been operated by a Spanish-Moroccan group. In Operation Toroyano a fishing boat carrying drugs was intercepted close to the shoreline. The boat sunk but suspects who dived in the water trying to escape were later arrested suffering from hypothermia. Navy divers have now succeeded in recovering 1,785 kilos of hashis from the sunken fishing boat to bring the total amount of drugs seized in the operation up to 2,600 kilos. Organised crime gangs that attack homes, petrol stations and businesses have been a particular target for Guardia Civil Action. This month a major operation, code named Centry, saw the Guardia break up a gang that had been attacking locations throughout the Costa del Sol. A total of 19 people were arrested and another six are being sought.

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Allan Foster wanted for a gangland shooting on Tyneside has gone to the top of a Most Wanted list after becoming one of just two villains on the run

Allan Foster wanted for a gangland shooting on Tyneside has gone to the top of a Most Wanted list after becoming one of just two villains on the run from police on the Costa del Crime.Allan Foster is believed to have flown from his Spanish hideaway to assassinate David ‘Noddy’ Rice in South Shields in May 2006.Detectives believe Foster flew out of the country the day after the killing, which happened at a seaside car park near Marsden Grotto, and has remained a fugitive since.
Last month Foster, 31, was named among 10 suspects by Crimestoppers on a most-wanted website targeting the Costa del Sol.Now eight of those have been tracked down after support from the Spanish public and authorities, leaving just Foster and one other at large.An update from Crimestoppers yesterday said: “The Operation Captura campaign encourages anyone who recognises the wanted criminals on its website to call Crimestoppers from Spain, to give information anonymously on a dedicated Spanish free phone number. Calls are answered in the UK by Crimestoppers call handlers.“Crimestoppers worked with both UK and Spanish law enforcement agencies and the British Embassy to set up the operation.
“On the day of the publicity launch in Malaga, Most Wanted saw eight times more people visiting the site, with 77,000 page impressions on the first day. Two weeks after the launch, more than 700 calls had been received which produced 65 useful pieces of information.“Eight offenders have been located so far, for crimes including drug trafficking, murder and fraud.“In Spain, the concept has caught the public’s imagination. The Spanish media have continued their interest and media coverage of the campaign. Commentators have expressed considerable interest in setting up a similar mechanism to aid Spanish investigations.”The Spanish coastal resorts have been dubbed the Costa del Crime since the 1970s because hundreds of British criminals have fled there.Mr Rice, 42, was shot nine times by two masked men on the seafront at South Tyneside after being lured to the meeting by Steven Bevens, 39. Bevens worked for Foster, who police believe fired the fatal shots.
Last year Bevens was sentenced to life for murder, while getaway driver Derek Blackburn, 51, of Humberside, who turned informer, was given four years for assisting an offender, later cut to two and a half years.
Foster sometimes goes under the name Sean Wilkinson, and is known to have associates in the Kent area and links to the Canary Islands and Majorca.
He is also wanted for two offences of conspiring to supply controlled drugs and for the theft of a diamond ring.Yesterday a Northumbria Police spokesman said: “We are still trying to trace Allan James Foster. We would urge anyone who has knowledge of Mr Foster’s whereabouts to get in touch.”

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3.2 tons of cocaine were found in a swoop on an Elche warehouse

3.2 tons of cocaine were found in a swoop on an Elche warehouse in 2004
Sentencing has been released in the trial of the eight men charged after one of Valencia’s biggest ever drug hauls, three and a quarter tons of cocaine found in a lorry-load of bananas in the El Altet area of Elche four years ago. Total sentencing in the case amounts to more than 77 years and the smugglers will also have to pay the value the drug would have brought on the black market: more than 112 million €.The longest terms went to six of the suspects, who admitted their guilt and accepted sentences of 11 years, with two of them also getting another six months each for falsifying documents.
Two others claimed they had got lost looking for a car boot sale and were only at the warehouse where police swooped by mistake, but the court ruled it proved that their role in the smuggling operation was to distribute the cocaine. They received terms of five years and four months each.

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Ola Brunkert bled to death after a shard of glass pierced his neck

Civil Guard headquarters in Madrid said: "All the indications are that this was a tragic accident. "A glass door in the kitchen of the house was shattered and it appears that this man fell through the door. "He then managed to get out into the garden where he died."Brunkert had been a jazz drummer and a member of the blues band Slim's Blues Gang, before joining the pop group Science Poption in the mid-1960s. His first-known session with Abba was also the group's first single, People Need Love. Brunkert was one of only two musicians to appear on all of Abba's albums.

Ola Brunkert, the session drummer heard on nearly every Abba hit the legendary Swedish band had in the 1970s and early 1980s, has died after a freak accident on the Spanish holiday island of Majorca, local justice authorities said Monday.
The 61-year-old apparently bled to death after a shard of glass pierced his neck when he stumbled through a glass door leading from the kitchen to the garden of his holiday home where he lived alone. Authorities said after an initial post mortem examination that the musician apparently lost consciousness after falling, and then bled to death. The drummer was discovered by a neighbour who late Sunday chanced by the house, which is in a compound of holiday homes near Areta, in the east of Majorca. Authorities said the compound was largely empty during the winter months - accounting for no one being immediately available to offer first aid. Brunkert was one of the most sought-after session drummers in Sweden in the 1970s, and played in a variety of jazz and blues bands as well as on the Abba hits that dominated pop music from their 1974 hit Waterloo to the band's break-up in 1982.

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Mari Luz Cortés family they have received a ransom demand for two million Euros.

The family of the missing five year old girl, Mari Luz Cortés, who vanished from Huelva in the middle of January, says they have received a ransom demand for two million Euros.
They say they received a phone call from an individual yesterday, who demanded two million € to release the child. But at a press conference held today in the Plaza Rosa del Torrejón, in Huelva, the missing child’s uncle, Diego Cortés, lamented the call which he described as ‘upsetting and senseless’, as it was believed the call is a hoax. He said that the family ‘was prepared to negotiate’ in the case of serious calls, adding that if the family would go personally to rescue Mari Luz if necessary. He said there was no chance of the family raising a sum of two million €, but that 300,000€ was possible.

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Cannabis 78 packages on board, making up a total of 2.4 tons.The 12-metre inflatable speedboat was fitted with three powerful engines

A Civil Guard patrol at the mouth of the Guadalquivir in Sanlúcar de Barrameda on Tuesday morning came up with an unexpected discovery, a boat left close to shore, loaded with more than two tons of cannabis resin. La Voz Digital said there were 78 packages on board, making up a total of 2.4 tons.The 12-metre inflatable speedboat was fitted with three powerful engines, and would have allowed the smugglers to make the trip from Morocco in a very short time, the paper said. There was no sign of any of the crew.

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10 suspected members of a gang of drug dealers in Torrevieja

It’s been revealed that 10 suspected members of a gang of drug dealers who were arrested in Torrevieja last month passed themselves off as police officers to steal from other gangs who were trying to smuggle the drugs into Spain. The Civil Guard also say they were part of a much larger organisation which has been under investigation since last June, when almost a ton of cannabis was found in a Torrevieja garage inside a stolen car.Dubbed Operation Julo, the investigation has led to a total of 29 arrests since then and close to seven tons of cannabis confiscated by the authorities, together with six stolen top-range vehicles, thousands in cash, and weapons and other items worth more than half a million euros.
Seventeen of the suspects are Spaniards, EFE said.They operated in a number of Spanish provinces, and one of their main leaders was arrested with 13 other suspects in Murcia this January in La Manga del Mar Menor.

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One in five of the European Union's cocaine users lives in Spain

One in five of the European Union's cocaine users lives in Spain, and 3 percent of its own people are regular users, the U.S. State Department said Friday.
Spain also is Europe's largest consumer of designer drugs and hashish, while remaining a major transshipment site for cocaine imported from South and Central
America, the department said in its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report.
«The Spanish government ranks drug trafficking as one of its most important law enforcement concerns and continues to maintain excellent relations with U.S. counterparts,» the report released Friday said.
Spain is «the principal entry, transshipment, and consumption zone for the large quantities of South American cocaine and Moroccan cannabis destined for European consumer markets,» the report said. It also is «a major source and transit location for drug proceeds returning to South and Central America.
While Colombia remains apparently Spain's largest supplier of cocaine «information available suggests an increase in shipments of illicit cocaine from Bolivia. Bolivian cocaine is transshipped through Venezuela and Argentina by vessel or plane to the Iberian Peninsula.
In the face of such facts, the report indicated U.S. narcotics authorities are pleased with enforcement efforts by the Spanish national police, the Guardia Civil gendarmerie, customs services and autonomous regional police forces.
They «maintained an intense operational tempo during 2007, and as of early November were on track to seize near-record amounts of cocaine,» it said, and were active against distributors of synthetic drugs such as LSD and Ecstasy.
The report said Spanish authorities recorded two large hashish seizures in August, when the Civil Guard seized 5,549 kilograms and arrested nine people in Gerona and Seville. In October, authorities intercepted 4,600 kilograms and arrested 19 people in southwestern Spain.
The product was believed to have originated in North Africa and was transported to Spain by a large vessel, which is the usual route for hashish, the report said. It said most comes from Morocco or Algeria.

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