MARBELLA CLUB

Shooting of a motorcyclist at Wooroloo, 55km east of Perth, yesterday may be part of a dispute between rival motorcycle gangsThe man was riding his motorcyle on Great Eastern Highway at Wooroloo when he was shot about 3pm. He is under police guard at Royal Perth Hospital where he was last night reported to be in a serious but stable condition. The shooting follows information given to WA police last week police that an eastern states motorcycle gang, The Finks, was planning a move into WA.
The wounded man is believed to be a member of The Finks, and police say they were investigating possible links between the shooting and outlaw motorcycle groups.
More details are expected to be released at a police news conference today.
Police have set up a detour around the crime scene on Great Eastern Highway, which will remain closed until midday.

Four Britons have been arrested in connection with the latest shooting incident in Puerto Banús on September 24 of club security boss, Marvin Herbert, originally from Liverpool.Named by the police as 40 year old M.A.A., 62 year old K.A.A., 59 year old M.Z.S., and 40 year old M.L.K., all four are believed to have taken part in the attempted assassination. The victim was shot five times in his right eye, right leg, right arm, pelvis and genitals, and remains in hospital in a serious condition after undergoing surgery two times.The police operation in the case has now been named ‘Cristalino’ and considers the shooting to be drugs related.

Body found off the coast of Dubrovnik is that of missing Australian backpacker Britt Lapthorne.Dubrovnik deputy police commander Ivan Kukrika has told a press conference that DNA analysis had confirmed the identity of the body. “DNA analysis has been completed in the capital, Zagreb,” he said.“According to the analysis, the body found in the sea on October 6th belongs to the missing Australian Britt Lapthorne.”
Ms Lapthorne, 21, from Melbourne, was last seen at a Dubrovnik nightclub in the early hours of September 18. Dubrovnik police crime squad chief Nikola Sakic said investigations were continuing into what happened to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) student.“We still wait for the complete results of the analysis and therefore it is too early to say about the cause of the death.”A local fisherman found the body in a cove near the town centre on Monday. Ms Lapthorne’s father Dale and brother Darren are in Dubrovnik, having travelled to the coastal tourist town in a bid to find her after she went missing. Her mother Elke stayed in Melbourne.
Croatian police had previously said the body was unlikely to be Ms Lapthorne because it was too badly decomposed. Yesterday, a detective assigned to the case from Zagreb told the family reports that the remains were those of a young female between 150 and 160 centimetres tall with blonde hair were incorrect.Ms Lapthorne was 152cm tall with blonde hair. In a similar case three years ago, Croatian police said a body found in the sea had probably been there for several months before it was confirmed to be that of murdered British backpacker Peter Rushton. Mr Rushton had vanished just five weeks earlier

man was arrested Friday as a suspect in the slaying of a Swedish couple who were found hacked to death in their home in a tourist district of the normally placid southern Caribbean island of Tobago.The suspect, 32, was detained because he resembles a man seen leaving the home of the Swedish couple before the attack, which happened Thursday, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Fitzroy Frederick.
Authorities have not charged the suspect and investigators were still collecting DNA and other evidence at the crime scene, Frederick said.
Robbery appeared to be the motive in the slaying of Anna Sundsval and Oke Olsoon at their home in the Bon Accord area, said Nadir Khan, a senior police superintendent in the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.Sundsval, 62, and Olsoon, 73, were found with multiple slash wounds. The woman died at the scene and the man at a hospital later.The couple, who had visited the island for extended periods for years, arrived in Tobago on Sunday.Trinidad, the most industrialized island in the Caribbean, has struggled with violence for years, with more than 400 homicides so far in 2008. But Tobago is considered largely crime-free, with only two others slaying this year.

An alleged member of the Camorra mafia based in Naples, 55 year old Mario Santafede, was arrested in Barcelona in a joint operation between Spanish and Italian police.
The man has been hiding in Spain for some years and has allegedly been directing drug running operations from Latin America from here. Cocaine runs from Colombia and Ecuador have been at the centre of his operations.He has now been handed over to the National Court in Madrid where he will appear shortly, probably facing extradition to Italy where he is on the list of the country’s most-wanted.Mario Santafede member of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia detained in the car park of a luxury apartment in the northeastern city of Barcelona

A mafia suspect on the list of 100 most wanted fugitives in Italy has been arrested in Barcelona, Italian police said today.

Mario Santafede, 55, a member of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, was picked up in a joint raid carried out by Italian and Spanish police on a flat in a residential area of the city.Santafede, who is the object of an international arrest warrant, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in his absence for criminal association in connection with drug trafficking. He has been on the run since 2004.Spanish police working in cooperation with their Italian counterparts have arrested a suspected leader of Italy’s Camorra crime syndicate, the Interior Ministry said Saturday.Members of Spain’s elite special operations police moved in to detain Mario Santafede in the car park of a luxury apartment in the northeastern city of Barcelona on Friday evening, the ministry said in a statement.Santafede, 55, is wanted by Italian authorities for suspected cocaine smuggling from Colombia and Ecuador to the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Italy, the ministry said.
The suspect, who is thought by investigators to have close links with other Naples-based criminals, is also wanted in connection with at least three murders, the ministry said.Santafede, who was in possession of false Italian and British identity papers when arrested, had changed his appearance through exercise, the ministry said.
The suspect was expected to appear before a judge at the National Court in Madrid later Saturday prior to possible extradition to Italy, the ministry said.
Santafede is one several suspected Camorra leaders arrested in or near Barcelona in recent years. Police arrested Patrizio Bosti, who was on Italy’s list of 30 most-wanted criminals, while having dinner in Girona last month. Bosti, 49, had been on the run since 2005.
In February 2006, Raffaele Petrazzuolo was picked up in Barcelona and deported to Italy on suspicion of criminal activity and complicity with mob leaders.Also in 2006 a man identified only as Carmine R., 38, was detained in the seaside resort of Sitges, just outside Barcelona.

Mercantile Court number one in Madrid has ordered Ryanair not to cancel any reservations made on its flights via the Spanish travel portal Rumbo.The airline had last August insisted that reservations be made only via their own website and not through travel portals, threatening to cancel any reservations made elsewhere without notice. Now however the court has ordered the company to remove that clause from their website and to honour such bookings.

GANGWAR has broken out between Britain's most powerful cocaine gangs in the Spanish Costas.A club security boss was shot five times in a bungled hit in the millionaires' paradise of Marbella this week as coke barons wrestle for control of the UK's £2billion-a-year trade.Last month a known contract killer was murdered in Spain while an Irish hitman was stabbed in the shoulder.In the latest attack, the security boss from Liverpool was blasted in the face, arms and pelvis by a man who is also thought to be from Merseyside.He remains in a serious condition in intensive care. The bloodbath follows the murder of Britain's top drugs trafficker, Colin "Smigger" Smith in Liverpool last November. Underworld sources say he was shot on the orders of two former associates, one known as the Bird of Prey. The pair are now trying to take control of his empire, which he ran out of the resort of Puerto Banus in Marbella.In the past month, gangsters loyal to Smith have sought revenge.
They include a shadowy group of former IRA hitmen known as The Cleaners.But before they could strike one of their gunmen was killed said to be by the Bird of Prey.

Kelly-Anne Corcoran was subjected to violence from her husband, Dermot McArdle, but stayed because she loved him, said Caroline Moran, Kelly-Anne's sister. She said there were "signs of violence" in the relationship and McArdle was aggressive with Kelly-Anne. Caroline Moran said that he sometimes pulled her hair and hit her.
"Kelly-Anne always obeyed him, she did it for a quiet life," Ms Moran said. "She loved Dermot, she was prepared to take it." McArdle denies throwing his wife of five years from the balcony of their Spanish hotel room on February 11, 2000. In an emotional address, Caroline Moran told the court of an incident after her sister's death when she was shopping with a friend in Drogheda and they picked up the accused's children in the car. While they were driving and talking, she said: "Mark [the couple's son] got very distressed and annoyed in himself and then Mark said: 'Daddy is a bold boy, Daddy hit Mammy and pushed Mammy down'.
"I didn't know what to think, I didn't know what happened," Ms Moran said. "I still don't know what happened, eight years later. I want justice for Kelly-Anne, I want to know what happened to her, why she came to Spain on a holiday and never came home." She also said her family had to "fight and plead" with McArdle to be allowed see Kelly-Anne in the coffin. Asked about the defendant's attitude after his wife's death, she said: "I never seen him cry, he showed no emotion, no feelings, no love towards Kelly-Anne." Ms Moran said at the funeral, she put her hand on her sister's head in the coffin and the accused came over and said: "get your effing hand off her head". She said when the accused gave her a prayer to say at the mass, he told her: "If you are going to cry, don't do it, I'll get someone else." In cross-examination, she said the couple were "very tight for money" as they were building a new house. Brigid Lowndes, another sister, told the court Kelly-Anne came to her house one night after a row with the defendant. She showed up in her nightdress, a jacket and no shoes. Ms Lowndes said at the funeral, she was putting a card into the coffin in memory of her other sister Kathy who died in a car accident, when the accused asked her: "what the f**k are you doing?" One night when they met, the accused told Ms Lowndes he was buying a new BMW. "I said why and he said it's what Kelly-Anne would have wanted," she told the court. She said McArdle was "drinking and partying" at the funeral and showed no emotion. Maria Nolan, a friend of Kelly-Anne, said she thought the accused had been "very domineering". Asked if Kelly-Anne ever displayed suicidal behaviour, she said: "absolutely not". She was shocked the accused became "so involved with a new car" after his wife's death. Peter Moran, Kelly-Anne's brother-in-law, said at the hospital in Malaga the accused told him that, "Kelly-Anne did not mean it and that she threw herself over the balcony."
When the couple's child Mark said, "Daddy pushed Mammy," Mr Moran "was confused" and "didn't know whether Dermot was right and the child had misunderstood.
"I phoned Dermot McArdle a couple of weeks later and asked him to explain it to the family. He said to me I am not f**king telling those people, he said you tell them," Mr Moran said. Earlier the court had heard dramatic evidence as five words, uttered by a child hung in the air: "Daddy bold, Daddy pushed Mammy." A hushed Spanish court heard that Mark McArdle, aged just four at the time, spoke these words days after his mother Kelly-Anne's fatal plunge from a Costa del Sol hotel balcony. Members of the Corcoran family and their friends also described the accused as "aggressive" towards his wife during their marriage and unemotional after her death. They alleged he at first said Kelly-Anne "threw herself" off the balcony, then gave different versions of what happened on the night of her fall. McArdle, of Haggardstown, Dundalk, denies murdering his wife Kelly-Anne (28) at the four-star Don Pepe hotel in Marbella, insisting it was an accident. She was rushed to hospital after the horrific plunge but died the following day

Spanish branch of the Latin Kings was launched in 2000 by the young Ecuadorian Eric Velastegui, known as King Wolverine, who is now serving a prison sentence for rape.
US leaders of the Latin Kings visiting Spain, however, have downplayed the group's violent reputation, and evidence from the north-eastern region of Catalonia suggests that such gangs have the potential of being transformed into constructive social forces. The Latin Kings' big rival in Spain are the Netas, a gang founded in the prisons of Puerto Rico in the 1970s. Other gangs include Dominican Don't Play (DDP), many of whose members come from the Dominican Republic. The Madrid DDP has begun to sell drugs and acquired firearms, the daily El Pais reported. Recently, evidence has even emerged of the presence in Catalonia of the Mara Salvatrucha and the Mara 18, Central American groups known for their extreme violence. In the Madrid region alone, the number of gang members tripled in three years to about 1,300 by 2007, police estimated. Nearly 300 of them were regarded as violent. The main gangs, which are present in several cities across Spain, are hierarchically structured, tribe-like organizations. They are characterized by mystical symbols, an ethos of religiosity and machoism, and an ideology of defending the Latin American identity against an environment perceived as racist and hostile. The Latin Kings, for instance, wear rap-style clothes and black-and-gold bead necklaces. Their symbol of a five-point crown represents respect, honesty, unity, knowledge and love.
The gangs tend to place women in a secondary role, with the Latin Kings as the only one to have a female section. Many of the gangs have a double nature, with leisure activities such as football alternating with robberies or extortion which new members can be ordered to commit as a kind of initiation rite. Dozens of gang members have been detained on charges ranging from kidnappings and threats to attacks and killings. Most of the violence takes place between rival gangs, but former members have also told courts about the beatings faced by those who break the internal rules. "We were told to pay 1,200 euros (1,700 dollars), or we'd be burned alive," two girls who had tried to leave the Latin Kings told a Madrid judge.
The growth of the gangs is based on the rapid increase of Latin American immigration to Spain. The overall number of immigrants has soared from 1.8 per cent of the Spanish population in 1990 to more than 10 per cent. The largest groups include 420,000 Ecuadorians and 260,000 Colombians. "Immigrants never see their children, because they work 23 hours a day. The kids are on the street, in search of a (new) family," King Mission, a US representative of the Latin Kings, explained during a visit to Spain. Gangs like the Latin Kings also give a sense of purpose and self-esteem to youths who may come from neighbourhoods riddled with gang violence in their own countries, grew up without their parents who emigrated before them, and who are now struggling with the difficulties of adapting to a foreign culture.
In 2007, Latin street gangs did not commit any killings in Spain for the first time in several years. The decline was attributed to police crackdowns and, in some regions, to attempts to integrate the gangs into Spanish society.
While the conservative Madrid authorities outlawed the Latin Kings in 2007, liberal Catalonia took the opposite approach, giving them the status of a cultural association. Representatives of the Latin Kings and Netas even visited the regional parliament, explaining to legislators that they were planning to make joint musical recordings to bury their hostilities. International experts on street gangs have hailed Catalonia's ground-breaking approach, but it has not entirely eradicated inter-gang violence.

The condition of the British man, Marvin Herbert who was shot five times in the street in Puerto Banús on September 24 last week, is making progress in hospital according to sources at the Costa del Sol Hospital in Marbella.
Marvin Herbert is thought to have been the victim of a drug related settling of scores. He underwent surgery for the second time on Friday after being shot in his right eye, right leg, right arm, pelvis and genitals.Government sub-delegate, Hilario López Luna, says it’s thought the shooting was a drug related settling of scores. Police have already searched the victim’s home in Cancelada and say they will question him when he is released from hospital.The shooter, described as being young with a strong complexion, is still at large.Meanwhile the alleged shooter at an incident in the Nikki Club discotec has declared in court and been sent to prison on remand. He is also British and in his 30’s.

court in Torrevieja has imprisoned three out of four people arrested for drug dealing on the Costa Blanca and Costa Calida .
One of the men is a police officer from San Miguel de Salinas . The group distributed the drugs to nightspots across the coast and the National Police described the haul as like a drugs supermarket .They also found all of the things needed for the preparation of the narcotics before sale , including acetone , gas , precision tools and a pill making machine .
All of this was found at the homes of the suspects in Los Montesinos .

Ray Hegarty who laid carpets for Tony Blair, the Queen Mother and George W Bush has been charged with smuggling £4million of drugs. Ray Hegarty enjoyed mugs of tea with the Prime Minister when he refurbished No10 three years ago. ASJ Carpet Planners, based in Mitcham, south London, have employed the 47-year-old for 30 years. He was arrested by Customs officers at Dover a year ago behind the wheel of a truck he had driven from Spain. They have accused him of having 2.5 tons of cannabis hidden inside. He was released on bail but has been charged with importing drugs and will go on trial in March.

Briton was being held on Spain's Costa del Sol yesterday accused of spraying a disco with gunfire. The man in his 30s, who has not been named, was remanded in custody by a judge in Marbella. He is alleged to have fired during a pitched battle at the crowded Nikki Beach club last month in which a man was shot in the leg.

Johannes Cornelis Smeding, 50, was detained on Thursday afternoon in the seaside resort of Pattaya, which is notorious for crime and prostitution.
He and 38 other Dutch and Norwegian suspects are alleged to have smuggled 300 kilograms of marijuana and other drugs into Norway in Apr 2006. So far 26 alleged members of the gang have been arrested. 'He will be extradited to Norway soon as he faces no charges in Thailand,' Colonel Manad Sriwongsa, of Thai immigration police, said. Col. Manad said Smeding had entered Thailand soon after fleeing Norway in 2006. He married a Thai woman and had set up a bar business in Pattaya

Bhamian Gayle, 23, of Ferndale Road, South Norwood, shot 32-year-old Sarah Johnson as she spoke with intended target Jermaine Broughton – a DJ known as Hurricane Jermaine.
Miss Johnson was hit by three bullets to her chest, arm and buttock but has since recovered.The Old Bailey heard Gayle told Mr Broughton he was a "dead man" at a soccer tournament the day before the August 27 shooting last year. Gayle and accomplice Robert Tate, 25, went looking for Mr Broughton at Virgo's nightclub on the Old Kent Road, where Gayle shot Miss Johnson by mistake.
The pair escaped, but three days later tried to find Broughton at another nightclub. They were arrested following a tip-off the next day.
The pair were convicted of attempted murder and possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life on Monday. Gayle was also convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.A sentencing date has not yet been set.

Marvin Herbert, head of security for a beachfront bar in the millionaires’ marina playground of Puerto Banus.In his mid-30s, he is said to have spent several hours drinking coffee alone on the terrace of Solly’s Diner in Puerto Banus on Wednesday.
He was joined by a second man, also thought to be British, at around 7.30pm. The pair were talking before the attacker pulled a gun from his pocket and shot Herbert five times as he walked towards his blue BMW across the road.Despite being shot in the eye, twice in the crotch, once in the arm and once in the leg, he survived.
He is said to be in a serious condition in a Spanish hospital.His attacker calmly walked away and got into a waiting vehicle which sped off.Hilario Lopez, the Spanish Interior Ministry’s representative in Malaga, said the victim had a criminal record in Britain and the shooting was believed to be related to drug trafficking.sources suggest the attack could have been a revenge attack for the shooting of another Liverpool man in Marbella last month.Spanish police are investigating links to two other shootings of Irish gangsters believed to be linked to drugs disputes.Several other tit-for-tat shootings have taken place in the resorts in recent months.
One witness told Puerto Banus’s local daily newspaper Sur: “We thought it was a firework going off until we saw the man lying on the ground, his face destroyed and covered in blood. It was like a film, his body was convulsing, although he was able to say something.”Marbella and Puerto Banus have long attracted Liverpool criminals.Budget airlines fly from Manchester and Liverpool to nearby Malaga regularly.Numerous city gangsters are said to be in Spain, including some with links to high-profile murders such as that of Colin Smith, Curtis Warren’s former right-hand man shot dead in Speke last November.As the main gateway into Europe for cannabis smuggled across the Mediterranean from nearby Morocco, a number of Irish drug lords, Eastern European gangs and London criminals also base themselves on the so-called “Costa del Crime”.

British man (MH) is in a stable, but serious, condition following emergency surgery at the Costa del Sol Hospital in Marbella after being shot several times outside a busy shopping centre on the calle Ramón Areces in the exclusive Puerto Banús district at around 7.30pm yesterday evening. The victim, who is believed to have been in trouble with the police back home in the UK, was hit in the right eye, the genitals, the right leg, right arm and pelvis. It is suspected that the attack may have been drug related. The shooter, who is described as a powerfully built young man, fled the scene after the attack, and remains at large.

The Liverpool expat,in his 30s , was blasted in the face, leg, arm, pelvis and genitals as he left a restaurant.It was the third shooting in the Costa del Sol resort in five weeks, and took place just yards from packed bars and shops.
The victim was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery but amazingly survived.
He had just left Solly's Diner, a British restaurant in Puerto Banus, and was about to get into his dark blue BMW when he was shot in broad daylight at 7.30pm last night.The gunman approached him, pulled out a weapon and shot him five times before walking calmly away, witnesses said.The victim collapsed on the floor in a pool of blood as panic broke out among people drinking or shopping nearby.Incredibly, he was still conscious and able to mutter a few words when an ambulance arrived 15 minutes later. One witness told a local newspaper: "We thought they were fireworks until we saw the victim on the ground, with his face destroyed, full of blood."It was like a film his body was convulsing, but he managed to utter a few words." A police source said it was "a miracle" that he had survived the shooting.One report said the gunman was also thought to be British.He walked away "in complete calm" then got into a waiting getaway car, a witness said.The shooting is being investigated by police from Malaga's Anti-Drug and Organised Crime Unit UDYCO.Forensic teams spent yesterday evening searching the scene for clues while detectives began studying CCTV footage.Local reports said the victim had lived in Marbella for several years.
One witness said the victim had sat drinking coffee for several hours on the terrace of Solly's Diner before he was shot.He said: "He sat on his own with a coffee. He was talking constantly on his mobile. Once in a while he got up, walked up and down the street and then sat down again."
A spokeswoman for the Costa del Sol hospital said: "The man suffered multiple gunshot wounds in his right leg, pelvis, genitals, right arm and right eye.
"He was operated on during Wednesday night and he in now in intensive care in a serious but stable condition." A spokesman for the National Police in Marbella said: "We are investigating a shooting in Puerto Banus but cannot give out any more information at this stage.Detectives are investigating possible links to two recent shootings in Marbella.Three people were injured in a shootout in the Aloha Gardens restaurant on 21 August.And two more were injured in another shooting at the Nikki Beach nightclub on 22 August.

Police and forensic experts inspect the scene of the shooting in Puerto Banús last night The man was shot as he left a cafeteria in Calle Ramón Areces, to walk to his car, a dark blue British registered BMW which he had left illegally parked with the windows open.

The victim was said by witnesses to be a man in his 30's from Liverpool who has been resident in Marbella for some years. A man in his 30’s, first reported to be Eastern European by some sources, but now considered to be British by most media, has been injured in a shooting incident in a cafeteria in Puerto Banús, Marbella. At least five shots were fired in the port at 7,30pm last night, according to emergency service sources, with four of the shots hitting the man in the face after a first shot to the knee. He is reported to be seriously injured. Witnesses described the victim as a tall and athletic blonde man, and say he is British, from Liverpool, and has been living in Marbella for several years. They say the shooter, who is also thought to be British, talked to him for some time before opening fire.
Police think that what was the third shooting in the town in less than a month, was a possible settling of criminal scores.

Nigeria’s army said on Monday itwould continue to fight criminal gangs in the oil-producing Niger Delta, underlining the fragility of a ceasefire declared by the region’s main militant group.The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND)declared a temporary ceasefire on Sunday after a week of attackson oil platforms, pipelines, flow stations and gas plants in theheartland of Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry.The six days of violence cut Nigeria’s oil output by at least 150,000 barrels per day and forced Royal Dutch Shell(RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to warn it may not be able to meet contractual obligations on shipments of crude from the country.The army welcomed the ceasefire announcement but said thatits strategy of fighting a network of criminal gangs involved incrude oil theft and kidnappings for ransom in the Niger Deltaremained unchanged.“We are not at war, so the issue of a ceasefire does notarise,” said Brigadier-General Mohammed Yusuf, spokesman forNigeria’s defence headquarters.
“If the restive youths are actually ready to lay down theirarms, then we will change our tactics. If there is no crime,then we will change our tactics. All we want is peace for thedevelopment of the area,” he said.Security experts say a loose coalition of various armedgroups operate under the MEND franchise in the anarchic delta,where foreign oil firms including Shell, Chevron (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Total(TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Agip (ENI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) have interests.