Special Forces of Arturo Beltran

soldiers seized 23.5 tonnes of cocaine – enough for about 200 million lines of the drug – in the world's biggest ever cocaine bust. It was destroyed in a public bonfire. Calderon is hoping his crackdown will bring his administration rewards from the US, which has frequently urged its southern neighbour to be more aggressive against drug mafias. The US Congress is debating a $1.4 billion anti-drug aid proposal for Mexico, including high-tech phone-tapping equipment and possibly Black Hawk helicopters.The proposal has been tacked onto a bill requesting more funding for US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Calderon argues the US government has a responsibility to help out because US drug users fund the traffickers - analysts estimate that Mexican drug trade to the US is worth around $10 billion to $30 billion a year.Most of the weapons fuelling the bloodshed are also bought in US gun stores and smuggled south over the Rio Grande."How are we supposed to confront these guys if they come at us? We need the army to wipe them out"Osiel Mendoza, Mexico City police officer
"It's a bi-national problem," said a senior US drug official in Mexico who withheld his name for security reasons. "It's an extremely bloody uphill battle. Narco-organisations have a developed infrastructure. It is being threatened and we are seeing their brutal response."However, critics worry that Black Hawks or other such tools given to Mexico could fall into the wrong hands. In the last two decades, hundreds of police, soldiers and politicians have been convicted of working for the cartels. One entire unit of army special forces deserted in the late 1990s to form a paramilitary commando called the Zetas, who work as bloody enforcers for the Gulf Cartel. Their rival, the Sinaloa Cartel, imitated their paramilitary style by training hundreds of would be enforcers in special weapons and tactics. After years of beheadings and reprisal massacres, these two cartels recently reached a truce, only to turn their wrath on the federal government, according to Mexican and US drug officials.The level of firepower of the drug gangs has been shown in raids on cartel safe houses in recent weeks. Police stormed one middle-class Mexico City home to find 30 guns, 12 grenade launchers, 30 grenades and more than 40 bullet-proof jackets with the initials FEDA – a Spanish acronym for "Special Forces of Arturo Beltran", an alleged drug gang leader.A raid on a Tijuana warehouse used by a cartel for training even unearthed a shooting range and assault course.Low ranking police officers complain they are outgunned and are risking their lives for salaries which are as low as $600 per month."How are we supposed to confront these guys if they come at us?" Osiel Mendoza, a Mexico City police officer, said to Al Jazeera.
"We need the army to wipe them out."

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Hashish had come from Tetuan in Morocco, shipped over from Safi or Tan Tan

While the debate over bugging continues in the UK, police in Tenerife make no bones about the advantages of tapping not one but twenty telephones, which was the case last week when it helped them bust a gang of local and Moroccan traffickers in Güímar.
The police swooped as the men were in the act of transferring 1,100 kilos of hashish in a van to a safe house.Hashish had come from Tetuan in Morocco, shipped over from Safi or Tan Tan and had been offloaded somewhere along the south Tenerife coast.

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Alicante death alley Bandidos evicted

Police moved into one of the highest crime areas of Alicante on Monday, the Barrio del Carmen in the North of the city, to evict 65 homes which El País newspaper said had been illegally occupied. The area is known locally as the ‘callejon de la muerte,’ – ‘death alley,’ and is, according to police sources quoted by El País, a known haven for drug traffickers.The paper reports some moments of tension as police – more than a hundred officers in total - put up three metre high fencing to stop anyone going back in, and oversaw the removal of furniture from the flats. Four people were arrested.The Valencia Housing Institute, who built the blocks eight years ago, have announced a renovation programme of 3 million €.

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Ciudad de la Luz film studios investigation by European Commission

Public funding of the Ciudad de la Luz film studios in Alicante is under scrutiny by the European Commission, who have announced an in-depth investigation to determine if funding from the Generalitat de Valencia, the regional government, could have distorted competition between European studios. It follows complaints from two film companies in Europe, and there are concerns that the Generalitat’s investment could have violated European regulations on state aid. Brussels said the Ciudad de la Luz complex is wholly owned by a company which is itself owned by the Valencia government through the Sociedad de Proyectos Temáticos de la Comunitat Valencia.
The European Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kroes, said in a statement released to the press that the studios have so far received 200 million € of public money, and pointed out that the final amount could be higher once construction is complete. The EC said the Spanish authorities’ argument is that the public support was not state aid as a private investor would have invested on the same terms: the statement adds that the Commission, ‘doubts that a private investor would have provided 100% funding for such a new large-scale entrant in a competitive market.’
The latest Asterix movie, Asterix at the Olympic Games, was shot at the Ciudad de la Luz, and premiered in Spain earlier this month.

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La Viñuela Bandidos give us 6,000 € and 12,000 € or else

Residents of the village of La Viñuela in the Axarquía, Málaga province are receiving a letter from the local socialist-controlled town hall, which asks them for the payment of what is called a ‘voluntary tax’ so that their illegally-built property can be declared legal. The amount being requested is between 6,000 € and 12,000 €.Most of the people affected are British and German, and they have said that they will create a protest group to defend their rights and to denounce what they describe as this odd system of paying tax. Some 300 people attended a protest meeting at the El Camping restaurant next to the reservoir last week to set up the protest group.PP spokesman in the Town Hall, Francisco González, said that around 50 British residents had received the letters over recent days, and that some of them had paid already, in cash or by cheque. He said that fear had led many to hand over their savings. González said the amount requested was supposed to be inline with the size of the property concerned, but it seemed to have been set more arbitrarily according to the wealth of the family concerned.The letters are dated from the time the illegal building started, and show the Town Hall official stamp, but are not signed by any individual, nor do they have a return address.
La Opinion de Málaga reports that such letters would lack any judicial value in the legalisation of the properties

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hashish flavoured lollipops believed to contain THC, the psychoactive substance in cannabis.

Alhaurín shop sold ‘marijuana lollipops’ A complaint last week in Alhaurín de la Torre took a surprising twist when officers discovered that the alleged dealer, a local shop owner, was selling not only bags of marijuana but also hashish flavoured lollipops believed to contain THC, the psychoactive substance in cannabis.

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Paddy Doyles post mortem examination body riddled with a total of 15 bullets

Spanish press reports that Detectives are now trying to establish a link between the murder of Paddy Doyle and Tuesday’s haul of 115 kilos of cocaine, also in Estepona. Following a series of clues found after Monday’s shooting the Costa del Sol Drugs and Organised Crime Unit (Udyco) set up a number of controls in the Estepona area. On Tuesday officers approached a group of people moving furniture around. On inspecting the pieces, ranging from wardrobes to sofas, they discovered the 115 kilos of cocaine hidden in secret compartments inside. Seven people, six British and one Irish, were arrested. One of them was a minor.
Later on Tuesday the police searched the home of one of the suspects arrested during the drugs raid, a villa with two swimming pools, on an Estepona estate. There officers confiscated around 80,000 euros in cash, a firearm and a number of documents. Another two people were arrested in this search, including a Moroccan woman and another minor, taking the total number of suspects in custody up to nine.
The post mortem examination,revealed that Doyle had been riddled with a total of 15 bullets.

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Gary Hutch, was driving the vehicle that came under attack during the shooting.

Spanish police are investigating possible links between a cocaine seizure on the Costa del Sol yesterday and the murder of Irish drug dealer Patrick Doyle.
Eight men, including one Irishman, were arrested following the seizure of 115kg of the drug close to where Doyle was shot dead on Monday in Estepona.
Spanish officials say the men in custody may have links to the murder.
They also believe the 27-year-old Dubliner was shot dead by rival drugs traffickers in Spain rather than as a result of an Irish gangland feud.
Meanwhile, an Irishman who was with Doyle at the time of his murder is understood to have come forward to the police.
Gary Hutch, a nephew of the top Dublin criminal Gerry 'the Monk' Hutch, was driving the vehicle that came under attack during the shooting.
He was reportedly injured in the incident

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Patrick Doyle shot all the hallmarks of a professional assassination.

Patrick Doyle, 27, from Portland Row in Dublin, was gunned down after the car in which he was a passenger was ambushed. Doyle, who had been travelling in the car with Gary Hutch and Freddie Thompson, two Drimnagh gang members also well known to gardaí, was shot twice in the head in what had all the hallmarks of a professional assassination.
Garda sources said they suspect the killing was part of a violent Dublin feud, but have not ruled out the theory he may have been targeted by a foreign drug gang. Gardaí fear the shooting will lead to further violence in the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud, which has already claimed at least nine lives since 2001. Gardaí were already on alert following the assassination attempt on crime figure Martin Foley on January 26. Yesterday’s gun attack happened in broad daylight in the town of Cancelada, in the resort area of Estepona, on the Costa del Sol at 2.15pm, Spanish time. Gary Hutch, the nephew of a former Irish crime boss, was driving the car. Another car pulled up beside them and its occupants opened fire. It is understood there were five shots. Four hit the windscreen and a fifth hit the passenger door. Doyle was in the front passenger seat. The driver struck a lamppost, with reports suggesting he received injuries. All three men got out of the car, but Garda sources said the attackers ran after Doyle and shot him twice in the head. The other two escaped. The victim was himself a suspect for two of the murders in the Crumlin feud, that of Joseph Rattigan in July 2002 and Noel Roche in November 2005. He fled the country after Roche’s murder. He is thought to have killed Roche after the rival gang shot dead his close friend Darren Geoghegan, and another man, Gavin Byrne, days earlier. He was described by Garda sources as a violent and vicious individual. Gardaí said Doyle had established himself as a significant drug trafficker in Spain and was involved in shipping large quantities of cannabis, cocaine and heroin from Spain into England and Ireland.

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Firsts reports indicate that a British Man has died in a shooting incident in Estepona

British man was shot in the head after a bullets were fired at the car he was travelling in Estepona today. It happened at 2pm in Calle Mejorana in the Bel Air urbanisation in Cancelada, and National Police are still at the scene. The order to remove the body was granted at 3,20pm, and police found a four wheel drive vehicle at the scene with five gunshots, four in the windscreen and one in the front passenger door.
The victim, aged 25-30 was travelling in the passenger seat according to a witness at the scene who said the four wheel drive was fired at by another car. The driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a lamppost. When the passenger got out of the four wheel drive, he was shot twice in the head.
There have been no arrests in the case as yet.

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