Welsh tourist was left for dead following a bungled bag snatch on the Costa

Ray Griffin, of Dowell Street, fell victim to thieves preying on tourists while staying in a hotel resort in Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol earlier this month.
The incident happened just two weeks after a Welsh tourist was left for dead following a bungled bag snatch.
The female victim was thrown to the ground as a man on a moped tried to snatch her bag, leaving her with a blood clot on the brain.Mr Griffin was on holiday with his wife, Valerie, when thieves made off with a purse, containing 150 Euros, a silver lucky charm and a Nintendo DS with four games."I was sunbathing by the pool and it was quite breezy," Mr Griffin told the Herald."When I got up, I saw our bag had blown to one side. I didn't know it had been moved by thieves."I realised the items were missing when I looked inside."Mr Griffin reported the theft to police and was later able to view CCTV footage, which, he says, clearly showed two local men in their 40s and 20s as the culprits."I saw the hotel manager and had a go at him about security. There is no security whatsoever," he said."It's getting terrible in Spain. Villains are making a living out of ripping off tourists."A few days after the theft, Mr Griffin was astounded to see the same men back in the hotel's grounds."I went over and challenged them, and they threatened to shoot me!" he said. "One of them had a bag and he went to unzip it as he said it."Other holidaymakers joined me in challenging them and they left the site."Mr Griffin believes the men were accessing the hotel grounds via insecure gates. He has taken pictures of the gates - to illustrate how they are being left unlocked or secured with a plastic tie.Mr Griffin travelled to Spain as an independent tourist and not as part of a package deal with a tour operator.

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“We’re waking up from the property dream and finding ourselves in a situation where prices are falling in Spain for the first time,”

“We’re waking up from the property dream and finding ourselves in a situation where prices are falling in Spain for the first time,” said Fernando Encinar, a founder of Idealista.com, a real estate Web site.In Spain, more than four million homes were built in the last decade, more than in Germany, Britain and France combined. Average house prices tripled in parts of the country, as Spain’s torrid economy attracted immigrants and Northern Europeans snapped up holiday homes along the Costa del Sol.
Now, though, thousands of those houses stand empty. The I.M.F. estimates that property is overvalued by more than 15 percent. With mortgages drying up and prices swooning, speculators who once viewed Spanish property as a no-lose proposition are confronting hard reality.In 2005, Julian Felipe Fernandez bought three small apartments, as an investment, in a huge development being built outside Madrid. He paid 100,000 euros as a deposit for the units, and now he is eager to sell them to avoid having to taking on a costly mortgage. But with the market stalled, Mr. Fernandez’s asking price is what he paid for them.“Three years ago, it looked like I would be able to flip them for a nice profit before they were finished,” he said. “I just want to get them off my hands, to get rid of this headache.”If he unloads them, he will be lucky. Enric Bueno, head of marketing for Ibusa, a real estate company in Barcelona, said his firm was closing six or seven sales a month, compared with 40 a month a year ago.“Things are really bad,” Mr. Bueno said. “If this goes on for five years, we won’t make it.”Economists have been busy cutting their growth forecasts for Spain, with a few saying that it may stagnate this summer. BBVA, a leading Spanish bank, forecasts that unemployment will rise to an average of 11 percent this year, from 8.6 percent in 2007.

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Juan Antonio Roca is accused of money laundering, defrauding Hacienda, bribery, the alteration of prices in public auctions and tenders

Juan Antonio Roca, is in the National Court on Wednesday morning in the so-called Saqueo 1 case, in which he is currently released on 450,000 € bail. He has also had to pay 1 million € bail in the separate Malaya case.The hearing on Wednesday at 10am comes under article 5050 of the Criminal Judgement Law which consists of a revision of his bail conditions in the Saqueo case. The appearance comes following a formal appeal made against bail by Marbella Town Hall legal department, in which they ask for a reconsideration of the bail granted.
Both sides will be able to question Roca during the hearing, and then the judge will make a ruling. Already Roca’s defence team has said they do not understand why the hearing has been called as nothing has changed in the Saqueo case and there can be no destruction of evidence. They also claim there is no ‘social alarm’ and no risk of flight.
The Saqueo 1 case is also known as the 'false facturas' case and is linked to the alleged diversion of public funds from Marbella Town Hall to private companies between 1991 and 1995 amounting to 27.6 million €. The late Mayor Jesús Gil and six others were charged in the case, where Roca is accused of money laundering, defrauding Hacienda, bribery, the alteration of prices in public auctions and tenders, the misuse of public funds and even a charge against damaging flora and fauna, amongst others.

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Viva Estates had 15 offices across southern Spain and was selling 2,000 properties a year.

Viva is down to one office and sells 200 homes a year if it is lucky. “It’s as if we’ve been hit by a tsunami,” says McCarthy, who is focusing on Hot Properties, a magazine he has set up to help people sell privately. “The property boom was over by 2004. Chris McCarthy, a Briton living in Marbella, set up Viva Estates, an estate agency aimed at selling property to the hordes of his fellow countrymen keen to buy on the Costa del Sol. At its peak, the company had 15 offices across southern Spain and was selling 2,000 properties a year. Last year, it was oversupplied, overpriced and illegal, then came the Spanish property market collapse, the US sub-prime crisis, Northern Rock, followed by UK house prices falling, rate increases, the mortgage freeze and the stock market collapse. It’s been like wave after wave hitting us.” Spain – and especially the south coast – consistently tops the list of the most popular overseas buying destinations for Britons, with an estimated 65% of the properties sold each year on the Costas going to UK buyers. With the British market in trouble, the Costa del Sol is feeling the draught. While the value of their own houses in Guildford and Birmingham is at a standstill or even falling, people are less willing to invest in a holiday home abroad. Other places popular with Brits, such as Florida and the Caribbean, are also beginning to hurt. Even in the south of France and Italy, markets are taking a knock, thanks to the strength of the euro, which has risen 15% against the pound since September, adding to the cost of buying. Couple this with tighter mortgage conditions for borrowers at home and abroad, and the picture is far from rosy. “There has definitely been a slowdown in the normal sales rates that one might expect,” says James Price, head of international residential development at Knight Frank. “It’s taking longer to get people to commit. There needs to be a compelling reason for them to buy abroad.”
“Super-prime property appears to be relatively unaffected by the tightening of lending conditions,” says Price, although he thinks even the top end of the market in most countries will begin to slow as turmoil in the financial world hits confidence. He warns: “The next 12 months will see a gradual slowing of price growth in the main international buying destinations, especially France, Italy and the Caribbean.” So what is really happening in the six most popular overseas destinations, and what should you do?

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Spain's real estate market is turning sour, a situation tied by some to the international banking crisis

The Costa del Sol Association of Builders and Promoters reported in February that sales of tourist property in southern Malaga province fell nearly 50 percent last year. It claimed the main problem was people being frightened by corruption scandals in which homes were built with licenses obtained through bribes.
Tourism and rampant construction over the past three decades have turned the Spanish coast from the French border all the way round and beyond the Rock of Gibraltar into a continuous mass of concrete.
In many cases, town halls bypassed planning regulations and took bribes in exchange for licenses.Spain says 40 percent of the coast is built on and nearly 70 percent of its beaches are surrounded by buildings.
"It was the politics of money today, forget about tomorrow." said Luis Cerrillo, head of the Ecologists in Action group in the Valencia region.
Spain, the world's No. 2 tourism destination, is the most popular choice for northern Europeans seeking to own a second home. Just British residents in Spain are believed to amount to nearly 1 million — though it's not certain how many own property.Most observers agree it is no coincidence that the coastal clean-up drive follows a real estate fraud scandal on the Costa del Sol in 2006 in which 80 people face charges.
Gordon Turnbull of Blue Med estate agents in the eastern Murcia region blames the corruption scandals and international banking crisis for dropping sales, but argues the coastal law might actually stimulate the market by making the coast prettier.
On two nearby beaches, he says there are the shells of two major apartment buildings, illegal and unfinished monstrosities.
"They put people off buying here," said Turnbull. "People appreciate seeing an eyesore getting knocked down. The government's not doing enough."

Enforcing a much-neglected 1988 law, the Socialist government is getting tough about what constitutes coastal public domain — the strip of land stretching back from the water's edge — and telling thousands of house and apartment owners their properties do not really belong to them."Out of the blue we've been told the house we have owned for more than 30 years is no longer ours," said retired British electronics engineer Clifford Carter, 59, who lives with his Spanish wife in La Casbah, a beach side complex in eastern Spain."The house was built legally, but now they say we can only live here until we die but can't sell the house or leave it to our children," said Carter.The fears of losing coastal villas come as Spain's real estate market is turning sour, a situation tied by some to the international banking crisis and its parent, the U.S. subprime mortgage scandal. While the troubles of Spain's overgrown coast are not directly tied to the banking crisis, both have involved shady business practices that often wind up in the lap of individual homeowners.Along the Spanish coast, a protest group formed in January says it already represents 20,000 people It notes that up to half a million others — apartment and villa owners and restaurant and hotel proprietors — could be affected. Most are Spaniards, but many are foreigners."This is the single biggest assault on private property we have seen in the recent history of Spain," said Jose Ortega, a spokesman for the group and lawyer for many of those affected.He says that at best, owners are being given 60-year concessions to live on the property or operate their businesses. Others, he says, are threatened with demolition.The government says the claims are exaggerated but insists the coast has to be saved.
"We're taking the law seriously," said the Environment Ministry's coastal department director, Jose Fernandez. "Previous governments didn't think it was important, while we have made it a priority."The government is finishing the process of drawing the line that designates what is state-owned and cannot contain private property along Spain's 6,200 miles of coast.
It plans to spend some $8 billion to fix up the coast. Some of the money will go to homeowners who, under the 1988 law, cannot sell to another private party but can sell to the state.Many people are suddenly finding they're on the wrong side of the dividing line. Ortega's group alleges the government is drawing it selectively, targeting individuals but shying away from tourist resorts.But it's not just individuals. The five-star Hotel Sidi lies a stone's throw from retired engineer Carter's house and the shoreline. Last December its owners were told it had been built on dune land protected by the 1988 law and must go. They are being offered a 60-year operating concession, after which it falls into state hands.
"We're afraid that they'll take away the property. It was built legally with all the papers," said Roger Zimmermann, the hotel's managing director. "This is our livelihood."Fernandez admits 1,300 structures have been demolished since the Socialists came to power in 2004 but insists most were constructed without permits. He denies the government has plans for mass demolitions or immediate expropriations. Barring exceptional cases, he says, people whose property is in the public domain will be able to continue living or working there.
Ortega says that is not comforting. "Today anybody who owns or wants to own a home or property on the coast can't be sure because at any moment the government can take it away from you without compensation," he said.
The economic impact on construction and tourism could be immense, Ortega argues.
This would be bad news for a real estate sector that has largely driven Spain's economy for the past decade but it now cooling sharply.

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Christakis Philippou , Evangelia Liogka fraudsters netted £6million from bogus budget sites

Holiday fraudsters netted £6million from bogus budget sites.A gang of fraudulent travel agents who scammed more than 20,000 sun seekers out of their holidays have been jailed for up to seven years each. fraudsters advertising budget breaks on teletext and the internet. Sixty-four-year-old Christakis Philippou was the ring leader. His mistress Evangelia Liogka oversaw the agencies and call centres, bankrupt accountant Timothy Entwistle masterminded the gang’s finances, while Peter Kemp managed the day to day running of their 26 front firms. Together, prosecutors say they made the perfect team. The scam was simple - set up bogus budget holiday sites advertising bargain breaks in Greece, Spain and Cyprus, take holidaymakers’ money then close the firm down. Between 2003 and 2006 such sites made £6million for the gang funding a luxury lifestyle of plush homes, fast cars and of course exotic holidays. Today the gang were brought to justice for defrauding an estimated 20,000 people. At Southwark Crown Court the gang were jailed for up to seven years each.
It was credit card companies and travel industry body ABTA that were left to pick up the tab for the gang’s crime. The victims of this scam say long term lessons must be learned. Mr Reynolds thought because he booked with an ABTA approved company he would be safe, now he wants them to be more careful about whom they approve.

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Viktor Bout lawyer in Thailand, Lak Nitiwatanavichan, said he would fight extradition

Thai police dropped charges Wednesday against a Russian man accused of being one of the world's most prolific black market arms dealers, saying they will proceed with hearings to extradite him to the United States.Viktor Bout, a 41-year-old Russian, faces several counts in the U.S. of "conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization" for allegedly arranging to sell and transport weapons, including portable surface-to-air missiles to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.Lt. Gen. Phongphan Chayaphan, chief of the Thai police's Crime Suppression Division, said Bout would remain detained pending extradition hearings, which he estimated would take 60 days.
Bout's lawyer in Thailand, Lak Nitiwatanavichan, said he would fight extradition.
Bout, who has been called the "Merchant of Death," was arrested March 6 at a Bangkok hotel after a sting operation in which undercover U.S. agents pretended to be arms buyers from the Colombian rebels.He could face 15 years in prison on the U.S. charge. Thai authorities had held him on a charge of using the country as a base to negotiate a weapons deal with terrorists, for which he could have been imprisoned for 10 years.Regarded as one of the world's most wanted arms traffickers, Bout's alleged list of customers since the early 1990s includes African dictators and warlords, including former Liberian President Charles Taylor, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and both sides of the civil war in Angola. In the process, he has been accused of breaking several U.N. arms embargoes.
Bout, who was purportedly the model for the arms dealer portrayed by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 movie "Lord of War," has denied the current allegations against him and any criminal activities in the past.Bout's lawyer Lak said the U.S. charges were political in nature and did not represent a criminal case because the Colombian government is fighting the FARC rebels over differences of ideology. He also said the conflict in Colombia is outside of U.S. jurisdiction.Extradition treaties between nations generally do not allow turning over suspects in cases of a political nature.Lak said the Thai attorney general's office was awaiting more documents from the United States before officially forwarding the extradition case to court.

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Mark Longhurst Assets, including an Aston Martin, two Nissan Pathfinders and a Rolex watch,.

Mark Longhurst had links with crime gangs in Holland and Spain, was caught after an 18-month investigation. The 45-year-old, of Chapel House, Newcastle, admitted conspiring to supply cannabis and money laundering. Newcastle Crown Court heard how Longhurst enjoyed exotic holidays, expensive cars and jewellery. As well as a jail term, Longhurst, who was arrested in March last year, was given an eight-year travel restriction order to run from his release from custody. The court also made a confiscation order for almost £923,757 - the biggest ever secured by the Northumbria force. He has six months to repay the proceeds of his crimes or he will have seven years added to his sentence, the hearing heard. Det Insp John Cox, of Northumbria Police, said: "This investigation has not only smashed a national drugs ring, but it has also sent a clear message to those who deal in drugs that the police will leave no stone unturned to catch them. "Longhurst was operating at the very highest level and his involvement in the wholesale distribution of cannabis was making him a lucrative living. "He had a team of conspirators working on his orders, and during the investigation we taped him arranging drug deals and bragging about the fortune he was making from his crimes." In April 2006 police and customs seized £100,000 in euros and sterling that Longhurst was attempting to smuggle out of the country, the hearing heard. Assets, including an Aston Martin, two Nissan Pathfinders and a Rolex watch, were also seized.

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Top members of the Canary Island Government were implicated in irregularities in the awarding of concessions for the placing of wind farms

El País reports that the corruption was revealed by the sacked General Director of the Siemeca wind company in 2005, who claimed that top members of the Canary Island Government were implicated in irregularities in the awarding of concessions for the placing of wind farms. Now the paper says that the Anti-corruption Prosecutor, Luis del Rio, has established the exchange of privileged information between Celso Perdomo and others, with the details revealed in a series of illegal emails. Perdomo is alleged to have paid 23,000 € into foreign bank accounts at the time. New has been breaking regarding corruption on the Canary Islands linked to the generation of wind power. Recordings made of conversations between the ex General Director for Industry of the Canary Regional Government. Celso Perdomo, and several businessmen have now come to light, following the first indications of corruption dating back to 2004 and 2005.
Now the prosecutor is calling for a six year prison sentence for Perdomo.
Finally Celso Perdomo was sacked from his post, and the Canary Island Supreme Court ruled that the concessions awarded were no longer in place. Now a new tender is being published offering concessions for some 600 projects for wind farms on the islands.

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José Luis Hernández, the President of the Polaris World group linked to perversion of the course of justice Mayor

The Mayor faces charges of perversion of the course of justice and the mis-use of public funds.Daniel García Madrid from the Partido Popular is reported to have exchanged building land with worthless plots in a deal with the Polaris World company
More details on the latest corruption allegations in Torre Pacheco, where the PP Mayor, Daniel Garcia Madrid, has been ordered to prison without bail by instruction judge in San Javier, Salvador Calero. He has replaced the earlier judge in the case, Aránzazu Moreno, who is on maternity leave.
El País reports that the mayor made a plot of land for building available to the Mar Menor Golf Resort, from the Polaris World company, in exchange for other plots of land described as ‘useless’. The difference in worth of the two plots is estimated by the prosecutor to be as much as five or six million €, but Polaris World was only called on to reimburse the public coffers by 455,331 €.Daniel García Madrid is linked to alleged irregularities in both Torre Pacheco and Fuente Álamo and the President of Polaris World is also chaged in the case
The Partido Popular Mayor of Torre Pacheco, Daniel García Madrid, has been arrested this morning in connection with alleged real estate corruption in the town, and also in Fuente Álamo. The arrest follows that of the municipal architect, Ramon Cabrera, who was detained in the same case on March 31, and came at 8,30 this morning when the Mayor was on his way from his home to the Town Hall.
He has now been taken to the courts in San Javier to go before the judge Salavador Calero. Reports indicate he faces charges of carrying out activities not compatible with a public servant, fraud, misuse of public funds, influence peddling, bribery, perversion of the course of justice and revealing secrets,
Another person who is charged in the case is the businessman Facundo Armero, an ex shareholder in Polaris World, who is reported to have received favoured treatment from the Town Halls in Torre Pacheco and Fuente Álamo.
Also facing charges in the case are the town planning councillor, Santiago Meroño, and the councillor for public works, Josefa Marín.José Luis Hernández, the President of the Polaris World group, one of the leading companies in residential tourism, is also charged in the case, as is a second businessman, named only with the initials J.M.F.F.

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