Bombings, torture and executions in restaurants – Inside the blood-soaked gang wars terrorising Brits in ‘Wild West’ Spanish resorts
The coastline's underbelly of violence has exploded onto city streets in recent months, resulting in a wave of executions, bombings and barbaric gangland slayings
THE Spanish resorts have for decades been known as notorious boltholes for wanted crooks - glamorised in no small part by film and TV shows such as Sexy Beast and The Night Manager.
But the coastline's underbelly of violence has suddenly erupted onto city streets, resulting in a wave of executions, bombings and barbaric gangland slayings.
Brit expats have told The Sun Online that many residents are fearing for their lives as the wave of violence spreads into bustling tourist destinations including Benidorm, Malaga, Marbella and Estepona.
Police point to the ease with which criminals can hide out in the large, anonymous residential estates which are so common in the Costa del Sol areas as one of its attractions, many hidden behind gates and CCTV cameras.
Experts also believe new gangs from 13 different countries - including Colombian drug cartels, ex-soldiers from Albania, and branches of the feared Russian mafia - are responsible for the majority of bloodshed.
And Ignacio Carrasco, general secretary for Malaga Province of Civil Guard association AUGC, said: "I think we’re in a spiral of violence which is only going to get worse. The gangs are using bombs."
A Sun Online investigation has found:
- British expats fear the region is turning into the "Wild West" as the "undercurrent of violence" worsens
- Holidaymakers are witnessing gangland slayings and in some cases have even been shot
- A new wave of international criminal groups has led to mobsters publicly "settling scores"
- Some foreign students at private international schools even have their own bodyguards
- Police fear new, more violent and "localised" criminal gangs are trying to establish themselves through force
- The Spanish coastline has become Europe and the world's "superhighway" of drugs
- Locals and cops fear corruption within public administration is plaguing attempts to thwart the violence
14Tourists in Benidorm flee as bullets whizz down a city street in a gangland attack in July
THE WARFARE
Spanish Ministry of Interior figures show there were 440 registered organised crime groups nationwide in 2016 - the last year for which official figures are available.
While more than 100 organised crime groups are based in Spain’s largest two cities Madrid and Barcelona, Malaga - alongside the neighbouring province of Cadiz and the coastal provinces of Valencia and Alicante - is on the next rung down with between 51 to 100 groups operating.
Among the wave of violent incidents to hit the headlines was the September torture of a notorious British gangster in Marbella.
Jewellery thief Craig Moran was attacked by a group of fellow Brits, who shot and kneecapped him before carving a Chelsea Smile across his face.
And in early October, two gunman opened fire at a tourist resort Estepona as holidaymakers fearing a terrorist attack locked themselves inside shops and cafes.
This came just days prior to the execution of a Moroccan-Dutch gangster in nearby Torremolinos. Hamza Ziani was known to have links to gangsters currently engaged in a cocaine war in Utrecht, and was notorious for his bomb-making skills.
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'IT'S CHANGED' BRIT WITNESSED GANGLAND KIDNAPPING DURING HER BIRTHDAY MEAL
Elisa Menendez, an expat from Manchester, was having dinner in Estepona four weeks ago when a man was shot at and kidnapped by gangsters in front of horrified witnesses.
The Spanish victim's corpse was later found dumped in a wheelbarrow in nearby Algeciras, covered in stab wounds.
Elisa told The Sun Online: "I actually live in Estepona but I've never seen anything like that before. It's quite a sleepy town but there's a real undercurrent of violence.
"I was having a birthday dinner with my boyfriend at an Italian restaurant. Out of nowhere I heard around 12 gunshots. We both looked at each other and were like, 'what the hell?'
"Out of nowhere all these people started running down the road - it was like a stampede of people screaming and crying and that's when we realised it was a shooting.
"The waiters told us all to come inside. We were all thinking, was this a terror attack? We didn't know what was going on, we were really scared.
"The restaurant is glass fronted, and I thought oh my god, they could shoot through this glass."
After the panic died down and police had the area secure, Elisa and her boyfriend visited the scene.
"There were police cones all along the road with bullets next to the cones with circles around them. Everyone was just saying they've never seen anything like it. Our waiter is from Caracas, Venezuela, and even she said she never seen anything like that.
"Here you're constantly hearing of all sorts of dodgy stuff going on. Algeciras is only 30 minutes down the road - it's the biggest drug trafficking gateway in Europe.
"Obviously the gangs have existed here for years but the types of gangs are changing. The Irish used to dominate the coast. (But) there's been a big change around which gangs."
His death was likely a settling of scores given he had been arrested on suspicion of making two bombs that exploded outside a villa and buisness in Marbella just a month prior.
These two bombings - in Marbella and Benahavis - killed no-one, but cops immediately feared it was "score-settling" amid reports one explosion was targeted at an Argentinian gangster nicknamed "Maradona".
Late last month, 16 people were arrested after a cocaine shipment with a street value exceeding one billion euros was seized at an industrial estate in Malaga.
Experts and police have told The Sun Online that cocaine from South America and hashish from northern Africa are believed to be the driving force behind the wave of violence.
And with more and more European gangs looking for a piece of the action, clashes are erupting increasingly frequently.
'I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE': BRIT SHOT BY GANGSTERS
IRISH tourist Shaun McGavigan told The Sun Online how he feared he was going to die after being accidentally gunned down in a gangland shooting in Benidorm.
The 41-year-old, from Derry, Northern Ireland, told he and his girlfriend Julie ran for their lives when four gunshots rang out in the middle of the city's busy nightlife district in early July.
He said: "As soon as we stepped outside there were two gangs fighting and arguing. We just walked on, but next thing you know there were chairs flying around.
"Then we heard one bang, and I said, 'that's a gunshot'. We heard a second gunshot and I felt a bang on my leg, like a hammer.
"I looked down and blood was just squirting out, and I just thought 'God help me'. Two Englishmen helped me, put my leg up and there was blood spurting out all over the road.
"I was really terrified, it was the worst experience of my life. I was thinking to myself I'm going to bleed to death. The bullet went right through, it didn't hit my arteries or bones."
Shaun said he lay in the street while a pair of English tourists and a Welsh woman helped comfort him until the ambulance arrived.
He added: "It's like getting hit by a hammer but multiplied a thousand times. It was the most excruciating pain of my life, I couldn't even think straight."
WHY THE SPANISH COAST?
Marilo Valencia, Secretary General in Malaga province for police union SUP, and a veteran police officer with 19 years experience, said: "The Costa del Sol is important first and foremost because its geographical situation. Malaga Airport is a well-connected airport with national and international flights.
"It has good road connections which means people can reach the east coast of Spain or Portugal in just a few hours. Its rail and maritime connections are also excellent. That mixture makes it an ideal location for people to move around in.
"At the same time rapid real estate growth has meant the area has become home to large residential estates where there hasn’t always been an exhaustive level of control over those areas.
"They offer these organised crime gang bosses the sort of anonymity they are seeking. They can live in large mansions and go unnoticed. These people also want to be able to enjoy the proceeds of their ill-gotten gains and they can do so in the Costa del Sol where they can spend large amounts of money without drawing attention to themselves."
THE IRISH CONNECTION
A brutal gangland killing which sparked the ongoing deadly feud between the Kinahan and Hutch families in Ireland occurred on the Costa del Sol.
Dubliner James Quinn, 35, was jailed for 22 years in June after being convicted of the September 24 2015 murder of Gary Hutch outside his home in Miraflores near Fuengirola.
Hutch, 34, was shot dead in broad daylight after being chased round a residential estate popular with tourists and expats and cornered by a swimming pool.
Former Spanish Home Secretary Alfredo Rubalcaba branded the Kinahans, who boasted a luxury lifestyle near the upmarket resort of Marbella, a “mafia family” after convicted drugs dealer Christy Kinahan and his sons Christopher and Daniel were arrested in May 2010 in one of the most high-profile police operations the area has ever seen.
A judicial investigation into their alleged criminal activities is ongoing in Spain, where cases can take years to reach trial after suspects have been arrested.
Hutch was killed after after a botched attempt to shoot Irishman Daniel Kinahan at his then-rented home near Marbella in August 2014 which ended with innocent former boxing champion Jamie Moore being shot and seriously injured.
Moore, a former light-middleweight boxing champion who was staying at the property, narrowly escaped death after being shot twice. The crime remains unsolved.
Marilo added: "The Costa del Sol is policed by two different forces, the National Police and the Civil Guard who each have their own databases, and that can be a handicap when it comes to tackling these criminal organisations. We believe a sole state police force is the answer.
"Some of the recent crimes have also been linked to drug traffickers who have inside knowledge of certain organisations stealing merchandise from others.
“If we go back to 2004, we saw a situation where the organised crime groups were smaller and more localised. Today there are more groups and their components are more aggressive with another type of ethics and behaviour.
"We see they’re trying to show off their strength with the type of violence we’ve seen lately with the use of explosives rather than trying to go under the radar and avoid attracting police attention."
Mr Carrasco said: "I believe a targeted emergency response by the authorities is required. There have already been 20 violent incidents linked to the organised crime gangs that we know about these year."
He added: "The Costa del Sol is a place where there’s a very transient population.
'THE WILD WEST': BRIT EXPAT SAYS RESIDENTS ARE 'NERVOUS'
Giles Brown, local DJ who has lived in Marbella for 30 years, believes the violence is gangsters "settling scores" between themselves.
"It all goes down to it's based in Marbella. You can see Gibraltar from where I am sitting so at it's closest point it's 14km from Marbella. That makes it a natural place to take over drugs.
"There's been a sharp increase in Moroccans, North Africans getting involved. The Irish gangs have kind of moved out.
"It's caused a bit of a power vaccum. Other gangs think they can muscle in. You're getting little groups of gangs from places like Barnsley and thinking they can set up and be the drug dealers they are back home, then they're running into the gangs from places like Liverpool.
"You're seeing the settling of scores. What it's showing that there is so many different gangs working out here the police are woefully equipped to deal with it and there's the corruption with the Spanish police as well.
"The older style policing here where there was a bit of a nod and a wink has been blown out of the water now.
"We've got gangs coming in from Morocco, the Dutch gangs, the Colombians from South America, so there are a lot of gangs working out of here at the moment. There is, unfortunately, a bit of a Wild West feeling down here."
"It's making people uneasy, to put it mildly. It doesn't do the image of Marbella or Costa del Sol look like a safe destination. A lot of the communities now are stating the fact that they have private security.
"So people are getting nervous, because it's starting to happen every two weeks now. It's feeling a little bit more indiscriminate. Now it seems to be they believe they're living in an episode of Narcos."
"The anonymity is something these organised crime gang members and their bosses are looking for, while at the same being able to do so with a high-end lifestyle with nice homes and expensive cars which is something that’s possible on the Costa del Sol.
"Another plus for them is that places like Marbella are the sort of places where you find the likes of government representatives and officials and civil servants and these criminals can make useful contacts.
"Corruption exists everywhere but it’s very difficult for mafias to flourish in countries where corruption is not at a ‘tolerable’ level."
He added: "The southern coastal area of Spain near to Africa is a ‘hot’ area when it comes to drugs trafficking which is the main source of income for a lot of these organised criminal gangs.
"It is an entry point for a lot of the drugs coming into Europe because of its proximity to Africa and that’s why a lot of these groups have established their centre of operations here.
"I’m also sure that the increased police pressure in the Campo de Gibraltar area where the drug ‘transporters’ live, has affected the situation in the Costa del Sol area where the international gangs and the capos are and the main market is based.
"If you affect distribution, which is what’s happened, you create a supply war. A war is going on at the moment for control of the supply of the drugs with a change of leadership within the gangs."
'BOMBMAKER' ASSASSINATED WHILE EATING SUSHI
A DUTCH national, of Moroccan descent, died in hospital last month after being shot repeatedly in the head and abdomen by a masked gunman at sushi restaurant Tiki in Torremolinos, around 9pm on a Saturday night.
Hamza Ziani was known to have links to the gangs currently engaged in a cocaine war in Utrecht, and was notorious for his bomb-making skills.
He had been arrested for making a bomb in Marbella just a month prior, suggesting his death was a settling of scores.
Dutch media also reported he was involved in a conflict with the wanted Netherlands drug lord Ridouan Taghi, who's feared to have had up to 20 men killed.
The United Nations of Crime: The gangs from 13 countries terrorising the Costa del Sol
THE ITALIANS
The Italian mafia - or more specifically the Naples-based mafia, the Neapolitan Camorra - first infiltrated Spain decades ago.
Mafia expert Roberto Saviano once said the mafia call the Costa del Sol "Costa Nostra", meaning "our coast".
In 2015 mafia crime boss Lucio Morrone, who headed up the Crazy Heads clan, was captured while collecting a money transfer in Benalmadena.
It came just a few days after Carlo Leone, from Naples' Elia clan, was arrested further along the coast in San Pedro de Alcantara.
The Camorra is known to invest dirty drugs money into local restaurants and legitimate businesses, but are also said to operate as specialist assassins.
THE RUSSIANS
In recent years, Spanish police claim to have stopped the local branches of Solntsevskaya and Izmailovskaya from operating.
The two groups, each with chapters established across the world, are among the most feared of all Russia organised criminal groups.
Russian gangs are currently operating in the Costa del Sol and southern Spain, but are not thought to be at the centre of the recent spate of violence.
However, on August 6 three Russian criminals - including Lasha Barateli, Russia's third most-wanted gangster - were arrested in the region while allegedly plotting a murder.
THE BRITISH AND IRISH
Almost all of the British and Irish gangs operating on the Spanish coastline are involved in drugs.
While there are many small-time crooks plying their trade locally, other more established gangs are importing cocaine in bulk then moving it on into the UK.
A few years ago this was dominated by the Kinahan clan - a family of Irish gangsters who established themselves as a leading criminal force on the Spanish coast in 2003.
Although this network has quietened down in the wake of a string of high profile murders, British and Irish gangs are still active.
Notorious gangster Craig Moran was last month kidnapped before being stabbed, shot and given a "Chelsea smile" in Marbella.
Police are currently hunting a gang of three to four other Brits who are believed responsible for torturing Moran, which included cutting the tendons in his right hand, slashing him from ear to ear, and shooting him in both legs.
ALBANIANS, KOSOVARS, BULGARIANS AND ROMANIANS:
It is feared gangs from eastern Europe and the Baltics - many of which comprise former soldiers - are growing in influence in the region.
They dabble not just in drugs, but also prostitution and human trafficking rackets that are relatively new to the region.
Last year 13 women were saved by cops after they smashed a Bulgarian prostitution ring and arrested 34 suspected members.
The women were believed to have been trafficked to the region from Bulgaria then forced to work on the streets of Puerto Banus.
The victims' families were threatened with violence if they refused, and were forced to drug and rob their clients.
A similar operation targeting Romanian women was busted in February and saw the two brothers who masterminded it jailed for more than 100 years.
Albanian-Kosovar gangsters, many of them ex-military, have also been arrested in recent years for running professional burglary teams across the coastline.
THE COLOMBIANS:
Given the vast amounts of cocaine being shipped into and then out of southern Spain, the Colombians also hold considerable influence among local gangsters.
Not only do they form the link between European drug distributors and the producers in South America, but they are also feared for their brutal executioners.
A drive-by shooting in Marbella in May was later revealed to have been the work of a Colombian drug cartel exacting revenge.
The group gunned down David Avila, nickname "The New Maradona", in his own car because he failed to pay back a drug debt.
He was killed while his wife, daughter and son sat in the passenger seat of the car on the way home from her communion.
Cops later revealed the killers waited until after the communion had finished - so the execution would have maximum effect and send a warning to others.
THE SWEDISH, DANISH AND DUTCH:
Little is known about these groups, but they are believed to focus on using Spain as a staging base for the importation of drugs to their home countries.
A Dutchman, suspected of being the right hand man to a British kingpin, was arrested locally just a few months ago.
And a Dutch national, of Moroccan descent, died in hospital after being shot repeatedly in the head and abdomen by a masked gunman at sushi restaurant Tiki in Torremolinos, around 9pm on a Saturday last month.
Hamza Ziani was known to have links to the gangs currently engaged in a cocaine war in Utrecht, and was notorious for his bomb-making skills.
He had been arrested for making a bomb in Marbella just a month prior, suggesting his death was a settling of scores.
Dutch media also reported he was involved in a conflict with the Netherlands drug lord Ridouan Taghi, who's feared to have had up to 20 men killed.
THE FRENCH ALGERIANS:
The French-Algerian groups operating on the Spanish coast specialise in the importation and distribution of hashish from North Africa.
Huge amounts of the drug is brought across the Gibraltar Strait. They have, however, dabbled in other crimes.
In 2015, police in Spain freed a young Spaniard kidnapped and held for a ransom of £32,000 for six days in southern Spain.
The lad was freed from a house he was being held captive in in Benahavis, near Marbella.
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He later told his rescuers he had been threatened constantly by the gang, who refused to release him unless the ransom was paid.
Gangs from north Africa have also been known to run burglary crews targeting wealthy homes throughout the region.
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