Costa Del Crime Read online

  To the good – and bad – residents of Southern Spain

  I encountered while writing this book

  Crime leaves a trail like a water beetle;

  Like a snail, it leaves its shine;

  Like a horse-mango, it leaves its reek.

  OLD SPANISH PROVERB

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Author’s Note

  Map of Spain

  Introduction

  Prologue

  PART ONE COSTA DEL CRIME

  Chapter One Evil Predator

  Chapter Two ETA Terrorist

  Chapter Three Bad Girls

  Chapter Four Diamond Geezer

  Chapter Five Darren the Drug Dealer

  Chapter Six Holiday Horror

  Chapter Seven A Shady Spanish Undertaking

  Chapter Eight Master Criminal Lenny

  Chapter Nine Slave Girl

  Chapter Ten Chain of Evil

  Chapter Eleven Artful John

  Chapter Twelve Hitman Luis

  Chapter Thirteen Slippery Joe

  Chapter Fourteen Girls’ Night Out

  Chapter Fifteen Rock of Crime

  Chapter Sixteen The One that Didn’t Get Away

  Chapter Seventeen Undercover Cop

  Chapter Eighteen Rubio Chris

  Chapter Nineteen The Pimpernel

  Chapter Twenty El Gumshoe

  Chapter Twenty-one Wiseman Tony

  PART TWO COSTA DEL SEX

  Chapter Twenty-two The Gigolo

  Chapter Twenty-three Patrick the Pimp

  Chapter Twenty-four Dungeon Queen

  Chapter Twenty-five Naughty Nightspot

  Chapter Twenty-six Natasha the Lapdancer

  Chapter Twenty-seven Trannie Valerie

  Chapter Twenty-eight Two Best Friends

  Chapter Twenty-nine Costa del Silicone

  Chapter Thirty Porno del Sol

  PART THREE I’M A COSTA DEL CELEBRITY, GET ME OUT OF HERE!

  Chapter Thirty-one Celebrity Squares

  Chapter Thirty-two Prince Miserable

  Postscript

  Appendix 1

  Appendix 2

  Copyright

  AUTHORS NOTE

  Many of the characters featured here would not have made it into this book if it had not been for my numerous contacts on the Costa del Sol. Many of them, naturally, would rather you did not know their identity. So to all the faces I’ve encountered, and to all the ordinary, law-abiding folk from southern Spain who’ve also helped me, I say thank you. Without you, this book would not have been possible.

  Most of the dialogue used here was drawn from actual interviews. Some was reconstructed from available documents; a few descriptions were reconstituted from the memory of others. There are no hidden agendas in these stories, and I make no apology for the explicit sexual action and strong language.

  On a number of occasions throughout the book, I have changed certain names. This has been done to protect both the innocent and the guilty.

  Wensley Clarkson

  Costa del Sol, 2006

  INTRODUCTION

  The average daily temperature on Spain’s Costa del Sol is 20 degrees centigrade, with at least 320 days of sunshine every year. Thanks to this wonderful climate, the gentle slopes and fertile plains that once rose up from the beaches of the Costa del Sol have been transformed into concrete jungles of hotels and high-rise apartments. Those who discovered seaside villages like Torremolinos and Estepona more than 30 years ago have watched in horror as the area has become overrun by tourists and foreign residents. And there seems little chance of it slowing down.

  With more than 60 miles of beaches, including picturesque coves and vast overhanging cliffs, the area behind the shoreline used to feature acres of olive and fruit groves and sweeping pine-covered hills. But all that has been replaced by vast urbanisations of detached housing occupied by the Costa del Sol’s richer residents who have moved back towards the mountains to try and escape the ‘lowlifes’ by the sea.

  East from Estepona is a typical example: San Pedro, once a sleepy fishing village, is now dominated by bland concrete buildings and dual carriageways. Its attractive whitewashed houses, adorned with geraniums and jasmine in window boxes, used to provide a picture-postcard backdrop. They are now long gone.

  Marbella remains a bustling seaside town with hundreds of bars and cafés. Old Marbella includes a Mudejar-style Church of La Encarnacion; marvellous buildings of Moorish design now serve as municipal centres. Travelling inland from Marbella is an area which was once the last Moorish stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula. This mountainous region features dozens of tiny villages, some up as high as 4,000 feet. But the Brits and other foreigners have already invaded these ancient communities by building characterless housing estates on any available land.

  Back on the coast, the yacht marina down at Fuengirola contains some of the tackiest vessels afloat. Unattractive bars named after British pubs litter the area. A couple of miles further east on the coast is Torremolinos, first built up in the 1960s as a luxury holiday location by Spanish dictator Franco, and now in need of a lot more than a good lick of paint. Goodness knows what the Romans and Arabs who settled in the area almost a thousand years ago would have made of it all. Phoenician necropolises still stand in some towns, as do the remains of Roman aqueducts; but the area’s history tends to be ignored by most of the Brits who have arrived in their droves since the 1960s.

  In the bright sunshine of the modern-day Costa del Sol it is sometimes difficult to appreciate that this entire area has been developed in less than half a lifetime. Sleepy coves with crystal-clear water have been replaced by overcrowded beach bars featuring spivs, drug dealers and sexual predators; there is a constant noise of people and cars at all times of the day and night. No wonder the pace of life here is frenetic and local people are suspicious and unfriendly until they know precisely what it is you want.

  Although the provincial government of Malaga is keen to continue encouraging tourists with open arms, it is also anxious to stem the tide of criminality so that in the long term this once beautiful area does not lose its appeal as a genuine holiday destination. But it is difficult to get away from the facts. Dotting the coastline used to be ancient stone towers and fortresses, which served as lookout posts during the Arab occupation of this part of Spain. These days the police are more likely to be watching for drugs smugglers and illegal immigrants. Marbella itself has become the unofficial capital of the Costa del Crime.

  Few people realise that the murder rate in this part of Spain has risen by 70 per cent over the past 15 years. Crime itself is said to have doubled. Drug-related killings between gangsters are virtually a weekly occurrence. Clashes between British, Spanish, Eastern European and Russian villains are commonplace. They run ‘businesses’ ranging from brothels to live internet sex services, from boat and property companies to satellite-TV installation firms; and then of course there are the obligatory multi-million-pound drug deals.

  Crime is the Costa del Sol’s second-biggest industry after tourism. It’s not an easy statistic to handle, is it? Tony Blair’s Britain has seen a gold-rush to this area; and when British gangsters spend their millions, they help keep legitimate businesses afloat, especially in the thriving coastal resorts. When Spain tightened up its extradition laws in 1987, the commonly held belief was that all the big-name villains would find themselves without a bolthole and be sent home to the UK. But because the change in the law was not retrospective, many British criminals simply based themselves full time in southern Spain and became even more involved in illegal enterprises. As one old-time crook said, ‘All that publicity about how the Spaniards had cracke
d down on us really took the heat off many of the big names down here and helped them thrive, because the reality was that the Spanish police were much easier to handle than the cops back home. And most of the characters out here haven’t broken any laws back in Britain for many years, so what can they be extradited for?’

  Headlines insisting that the glory days of the Costa del Crime are over are very wide of the mark. Back in 2001, the Home Secretary Jack Straw joined forces with his Spanish counterpart and claimed that, under new extradition rules, these British criminals in Spain could be brought back to the UK to face justice.

  Despite signing a treaty with Spain back in 1985, the procedures remain complex and time consuming. A villain with a skilful lawyer can still drag out the procedure for months, and sometimes even years. It took nine months to extradite M25 killer and master criminal Kenneth Noye, despite this new spirit of co-operation.

  These days, few of the numerous British villains on the Costa del Crime are on the run from justice. They pose as businessmen and earn fortunes while the Spanish authorities are either powerless to prosecute or, in some cases, simply turn a blind eye. Local police often take the attitude that, because the drug shipments never stay in Spain for long and most of the violence is between criminals, it’s not worth their while trying to arrest many of these characters. Incalculable fortunes, rather than sun, sea and sand, is now the allure of the Costa del Crime.

  Many criminals have even retired after making their fortunes ferrying hash and cocaine across Europe. Others point to the number of cranes on the horizon in resorts like San Pedro and Puerto Banus as the ultimate proof that business is still booming. Most of the criminals operating out here don’t even speak basic Spanish, but they let their money do the talking for them. Even when some do get arrested they know there are many ways to avoid jail. As one old-timer says, ‘The trick is to get bail. About €15,000 normally does it. And once you’re out, you’re out for ever. New name, new apartment – and the world’s your oyster once again.’

  Many of these characters look utterly ordinary, like any of the overwhelmingly blameless Brits who live or holiday on the Costa del Sol. And these people get respect from many ordinary people because their criminal activities carry little or no stigma whatsoever. Tucked away in the hills, behind all the most popular Costa del Crime resorts, are countless such villains enjoying a view of the Mediterranean, a decent pension and moaning about how the young hoods are giving the coast a bad reputation.

  The police are virtually powerless to do anything because, under Spanish law, conspiracy does not exist as a crime. Even the most mountainous pile of incriminating and circumstantial evidence is useless unless the suspect is caught red-handed – sitting on top of a shipment of drugs or carrying a smoking gun.

  But all this goes a long way to explaining how so many of the tens of thousands of bars and restaurants and timeshare complexes on the Costa del Crime stay afloat in the face of fierce competition. Some are laundering money so much that traditional profit is almost irrelevant.

  One Spanish property expert recently described the construction activity in places like Marbella and Estepona as ‘astounding’. The number of permits for housing and corporate units has almost doubled in the last ten years. There is currently close to £1 billion worth of business going on. Seventy-five per cent of that money is laundered from the proceeds of crime. Where else do these people get their money?

  The Costa del Crime has become a vast building site with drugs money financing housing, shopping and corporate developments that will generate clean, hard euros. Those who reckon criminal activity along the sunlit stretch is exclusively the domain of small-time crooks on the run could not be more wrong.

  Ever-diminishing Spanish police recruitment has led to officers being diverted from the usual criminal activities such as prostitution and drugs, allowing them to thrive. Statistics from the Costa del Sol make worrying reading: of more than 600 criminal gangs examined, over 40 per cent deal in cannabis, half in cocaine and a similar number in heroin, and about 40 per cent in so-called ‘synthetic’ drugs such as ecstasy. All this means the big firms are raking in millions of pounds every week.

  The Spanish government has regularly vowed that their police would seize assets if they could prove ‘on the balance of probability’ that gangsters were living off the proceeds of their crimes. The Spanish police even pushed for the power to grab dirty money from the bank accounts of major criminals involved with drugs, prostitution, money laundering, counterfeiting, smuggling or computer fraud. But the logistics of carrying out such high-tech measures have so far proved beyond the Costa del Sol police. One Spanish detective even admits, ‘These criminals don’t even hide their wealth, they flaunt it – especially the ladies of the family. Profit is the only thing that drives these people. Who knows when we’ll arrest them in the end?’

  Drugs money in Spain is laundered through reinvestment in pubs, restaurants, clubs and even ‘car fronts’ – open-air used-motor lots. Criminals also dip in and out of property deals, often working through specially set-up legitimate businesses. One well-known Costa del Sol property dealer who owed £600,000 to a gangster was shot dead after failing to come up with the cash.

  Another little-known source of income for the big-name gangsters in southern Spain is the trade in counterfeit currency. A lot of villains have been swift to pick up on this. Barclays Bank recently intercepted more than £1 million worth of fake notes from Gibraltar, and it is reckoned that more than £200 million in forged euro cash is floating around at any one time.

  The established criminals in Spain – Brits, Kurds, Russians, Eastern Europeans and Germans – all pose an enormous threat to safety on the streets and beaches of Spain because most of them are always armed. There is even a Chinese mafia which dabbles in drugs, people importation and protection rackets, mainly within its own Chinese community. Those who trade in people charge up to £10,000 per person, and this is now rivalling drugs as the most lucrative enterprise.

  Spain is also fast becoming a key staging post for teams of African smugglers dealing in everything from people to drugs. Until recently, the Nigerians concentrated on complex frauds and benefit scams back in the UK, but in the Costa del Sol they already control 90 per cent of the heroin trade. British Customs and Excise and the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) have specialist squads monitoring and infiltrating African organised-crime gangs slipping into Spain.

  I first became involved with the shady world of Spanish-based UK criminals some years ago when I was working on a book about road-rage killer and underworld kingpin Kenny Noye. At the time, I hardly knew the area that ran from Malaga west along the coast past Fuengirola and Marbella to Estepona and beyond. When I tracked down some real-life villains in Spain for my Noye book, they painted an extraordinary picture of a society within a society where criminals and police existed in their own worlds with their own rules. Flying into Malaga and then turning right at the motorway exit was the equivalent of driving into a vast, sun-soaked criminal hinterland. All roads in the Costa del Sol lead to this subculture, and it seems that virtually every murder has a link to the criminals who’ve made their fortunes here, mostly from drugs and vice. It is chilling to think that such a lawless society exists in the middle of our most popular tourist destination.

  In this book, I’ve tried to take you, the reader, on an authentic, nail-biting roller-coaster ride through the full-on criminality of the area. The people I encountered combined the wit of Alfie with the cold-bloodedness and tangled domestic lives of The Sopranos. A lot of the villains I’ve come across in Spain are mildly amused by my book, despite the fact that it gives away a few tricks of the trade. They enjoy the kick of their world being featured in print, even though only their closest criminal associates would recognise their contributions. Some even believe my exposure of their world will bring them even more respect on ‘the manor’.

  On a number of occasions I broke the writer’s golden rule: don’t get
too close to your subjects. I had a few threats from the family of one well-known criminal when they thought I was pushing my luck in the name of research. It ended with a sinister phone call: ‘We might chop you up if you keep stickin’ yer nose in our business.’ But that was as far as it went, thank God. As another more friendly villain later told me, ‘If they’d really been after you they would hardly have bothered to tell you first, would they?’

  Not everyone I’ve written about in Costa del Crime is bad. They can be funny, vulnerable, even kind, and I’ve tried to portray every aspect of their lives rather than just the predictable hard-nosed stuff. Many of them are street-smart survivors doing what they know best. Others are victims of circumstance desperately trying to keep their heads above water simply by offering tourists what they want – with greater or lesser degrees of criminality. Down at the recently opened Mijas racecourse, thousands of Brits gather every weekend to recreate their own slice of ‘back home’ atmosphere and gamble away a fortune in the process. A few miles away, other boozy Brits favour a handful of beach bars where you can buy passports, UK driving licences and even Spanish registration plates to help avoid congestion charges back in London. These people spend their nights ducking and diving around the mean streets of southern Spain, and they see the world differently to the rest of us. You learn to survive by your instincts; you don’t trust many people; you don’t make light conversation because loose lips can sink ships; you spend each day thinking that your world may be shut down by a sneaky grass, a jealous lover or an angry punter; you devise ways and means of keeping ahead of the game.

  It is a potent, explosive cocktail that all adds up to the Costa del Crime.

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Fat Stan’ heaved his 22-stone frame up into the driver’s seat of his son’s Range Rover with great difficulty. He was more used to motoring around in his own vintage Roller, once owned by Frankie Vaughan. Just as he checked the time on his gold Rolex, a man holding a gun equipped with a silencer strolled alongside him in the car park of Malaga Airport. As Stan pleaded for his life, two shots rang out and his vast, blubbery body slumped against the dashboard. The gunman calmly walked to the nearest elevator and took it down to the arrivals car park without once looking back at the scene of carnage he’d just created. The police only found Fat Stan’s obese body slumped in that Range Rover after complaints from motorists about a swarm of flies.