Corruption on the Spanish costa’s
Complinet reported yet another roundup of corrupt Spanish officials on the Spanish East coast. 23 individuals, including the mayor -Antonio Barrientos- of Estepona on the Costa del Sol, have been arrested on corruption charges. Amongst the arrested were also ‘the usual suspects’; real estate developers, ‘intermediairies of all sorts’ and former officials turned into businessmen. Bank accounts of 91 companies have been frozed in an attempt to recover some of the corruption proceeds. Hundreds of cases of corruption connected to the construction industry have come to light in the last three years, with several town mayors and officials arrested on charges of taking kickbacks from builders during the country’s long construction boom.
Remember the infamous mayor of Marbella; Jesus Gil y Gil ? During his reign in Marbella this town flourished as a safe haven for all sorts of criminals. Criminals do seem to have a strong tendency to follow trends; hipness of another kind. In the mid/late 90′s, you weren’t much of a European (and Colombian) criminal without a second home in Spain’s Marbella or Ibiza. On a larger scale, criminal money was pumped into construction of hotels and apartments to launder even more money.
Because mouth to mouth advertising and recommendations are the only ways to market yourself in the criminal world, whole networks of criminals followed the trend to use certain money laundering techniques to buy houses and boats in Spain. European police agencies increased their liaison presences in Spain for this reason. The ‘costa del crime’ has been target of intense policing. Although several houses, cars and yachts have been confiscated in Marbella and Ibiza, it would be interesting to know how much criminal money still keeps the world go round in that corner of the world.
One way to gain a better intelligence position is to focus on the guys who make it all happen; not the criminals who want to invest but the facilitators who seem to be ‘hot’ at that moment in time and take care of all business for several criminals. Insight in their businesses, accounts and records, would be a treasure for European law enforcement. Let’s hope that the Spanish police increased their intel reports on what’s going on during this operation so they can continue fighting the inflow of criminal money and the related corruption.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE2D71F3AF936A35756C0A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/apr/04/business/ft-spain4
http://propertyworld.com/sub_page.cfm/title/Marbella%20in%20multi-billion%20property%20scandal%20-%2011%20April%202006/section/Home/editID/450
http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_17116.shtml
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews/idUSL17873120080617
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jes%C3%BAs_Gil
