owners of illegal property in Catral, Alicante, have said that they will not pay monies demanded of them to make their homes legal, and have called a protest. They say the amounts demanded, for infrastructure and basic services, are ‘excessive and unjust’ because they purchased their properties in good faith without knowing that the builders were selling them illegally.The owners of more than 1,300 houses built illegally on the traditional orchard land in Catral say that the local Town Hall and Generalitat regional government are to blame for the situation as neither stopped the construction in 2002 when the situation was highlighted by Seprona, the environmental wing of the Guardia Civil.Between the years 2000 and 2005 thousands of people, most of them British, bought property in the area through real estate offices who said that clearly that the builders had obtained all the correct licences.The demonstration has been called for 11am on Wednesday outside the Catral Ayuntamiento.

Search for a missing 13 year old German boy who fell into the sea at Calpe on Thursday was called off last night as rough seas continued to affect the area. The child had fallen into the sea from the breakwater on the Playa de la Fosa.
The weather conditions complicated the search and lead to some of the firemen taking part being injured.Witnesses had reported seeing three people fall into the water, of whom two managed to get out, one unaided and a second thanks to another man who was in the area.These two are both reported to be foreigners, one of them is Senegalese according to reports, who had also tried without success to reach the German boy, but who finally had to be rescued himself.The Alicante Fire Service was called out, generally because of wind damage, some 100 times on Thursday between 1030 and 1930. Most of the calls came from Elche, Alcoy, Concentaina, La Nucía, Benidorm, Orihuela, Torrevieja and San Vicente del Raspeig.

unnamed British man in his mid thirties has died after falling from the balcony of a hotel when he was trying to flee from the Guardia Civil.The man died around 5am on Friday morning after falling from the first floor of the hotel in Guardamar, Alicante, and suffered severe head injuries. It’s thought he was trying to escape after the Guardia Civil were called because of his allegedly drunken and rowdy behaviour which had been disturbing other hotel guests.He was taken by helicopter to hospital but died shortly after.Información newspaper reports that the two British people in the room refused to open the door to the Guardia Civil when they arrived, and when the Guardia managed to gain access one of the men tried to escape over the balcony which was only three metres high.An autopsy has been carried out and the friend of the deceased has been arrested.

75-year-old woman was killed last night when the bedroom roof of her cave house collapsed in on top of her as she was sleeping. The incident occurred at around 2.30am at number 19, calle Castellana, Rojales (Alicante), a small town with a population of just over 7,000 inhabitants some 4km inland from Guardamar del Segura.
The rest of the property was unaffected. Emergency medics were unable to revive the victim, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

new whistleblowers' hotline to help catch benefit cheats living it up on the 'Costas' was launched today in Spain. In the first trial of its kind, ex-pats in Alicante who suspect benefit fraud will be able to report their concerns on a local number. Cases will be passed by the operator to investigators in the UK, who will also be able to draw on the team's on-the-ground intelligence. Anti-Benefit Fraud Minister, James Plaskitt said: "Most ex-pats are law-abiding and outraged by people who abuse the system. Helped by this hotline, the sun will now set on the cheats."
The cost of benefit fraud committed abroad is an estimated £93 million a year. It involves a range of scams such as people on means-tested benefits going abroad but not declaring their absence, an individual working while "sick" and legitimate payments taken over after the rightful recipient dies. The pilot will test the usage and quality of information provided and posters advertising the line will appear across Alicante from today. The initiative is part of a growing relationship between Spain and the UK on social security issues that already includes agreements to data-match and share death notifications. Later this week James Plaskitt will sign a Memorandum of Understanding to cement the Anglo-Spanish partnership. James Plaskitt added: "Benefit fraud is a crime no matter where it happens. We are forging strong relationships with governments across Europe to help us catch the thieves who pick our pockets from beyond our shores." The Spanish benefit fraud hotline number is 900 554 440. It is free and confidential and will initially operate 8am and 4pm, Monday to Friday. Of British ex-pats living in Spain, recent figures suggest seven in ten are based in the "Costas" region, with around 300,000 living in Alicante. The hotline will be run and funded by the Department for Work and Pensions, working with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

The group had some 60,000 clients, most of them British, between Benidorm in Alicante and Vera in Almería. The Judicial Police from the Torrevieja Guardia Civil has broken up an international gang which had been pirating British satellite television signals and then distributing them to British clients resident in the provinces of Alicante, Murcia and Almería in an area between Benidorm and Vera.
The group, based in an industrial estate at Algorfa, Alicante, had more than 60,000 clients, most of them British who paid 590 € for the installation of the system and then a monthly subscription of between 18 and 22 €. A total of 500 million € is thought to have been defrauded by the group which made no tax payments to Hacienda.
A total number of 14 people have been arrested, including eight Spaniards, three Britons and a Byelorussian, Rumanian and Russian.Investigations started following a complaint placed by Sogecable, the owners of the Spanish Digital Plus satellite system

The woman's partner covered her with alcohol saying he was giving her a massage, but then set her alight. A 39 year-old Alicante woman has suffered ‘deep second degree and third degree’ burns after her partner massaged alcohol into her genitals and then set her on fire. The couple is believed to be homeless and live in an abandoned house in the city and the woman suffered the pain for two days before seeking medical help. She is now waiting for an operation in hospital while her partner has been arrested by the National Police and has been sent to prison on remand.Police sources explained that the couple had been arguing when the man said he forgave the woman and offered to give her a massage. It was then he carried out the brutal abuse.

20 year old Romanian man has been arrested by police in Madrid in connection with the death of a German pensioner couple who were stabbed to death last Monday night in their attic flat home in Teulada.The arrested man had been working as the gardener in the complex where the Germans, aged 78 and 85, had previously lived in Benissa, and police think that he knew that the couple had a large amount of money in cash as they were about to purchase a villa. The accused is said to have taken that money from the couple’s safe.
Informacíon newspaper in Alicante reports this morning that the accused was turned into the police by his girlfriend. He will go before the court in Dénia later today.

British man from South Shields was being held in a Spanish police cell last night, accused of trying to smuggle more than half a tonne of cocaine through the Mediterranean.The 50-year-old South Shields man, named only by his initials RPJ, was held after undercover officers from both Spain and Portugal intercepted a shipment from the West African country of Gambia.The 514kg of cocaine, concealed in paper handkerchiefs and worth more than £21.5m on the streets, was identified first by Portugese authorities when the freighter arrived in Lisbon.The drugs were in packages found within boxes marked ‘Comfort tissues by Gardenia’ – a South African tissue firm that is not being investigated by police. Yesterday a Spanish police spokesman said: “In the search that took place of the industrial unit, it was verified that there were numerous boxes of handkerchiefs that corresponded to two dispatches done previously, which possibly relate to verifying ‘signals’, regular methodology in drug traffic network systems when they open a new drug entry route.They removed the drugs from the container and then allowed it to be transferred on to a lorry, which continued under surveillance to south eastern Spain, where the 50-year-old was arrested.Detectives said last night they believed the route taken by the smugglers was a new one for shipments from Columbia into Europe.‘Operation Paper’ was launched after customs officials in Lisbon became suspicious of the container when it arrived from Gambia on February 29.After inspecting it, 470 parcels of cocaine were detected, hidden in 352 boxes of the paper handkerchiefs.A simultaneous undercover operation was launched by police in Spain who kept watch on the Torres industrial estate unit in Villajoyosa, Alicante, where the goods were destined.Meanwhile, the truck’s journey from Lisbon to Alicante was shadowed by Spanish police and officers swooped to arrest the Tynesider as he took delivery of the container.When they searched the warehouse, officers also found two other consignments of paper hankerchiefs, indicating that the smugglers had previously carried out two dummy-runs on the new route before sending the cocaine.Officers are not ruling out further arrests in the case, as they continue to analyse the shipping route and associates of ‘RPJ’.Detectives told reporters in Spain they believe the arrested man would have sent the cocaine on to the UK where it would be expected to fetch £21,588,000 on the streets.“The operation is still open and further arrests are not discounted, since documentation obtained in the registers is been analysed in the hope of identifying other members of the traffic network.”

British man is to appear in court in Alicante province after he was found to be driving at six times over the alcohol limit, EFE reported on Tuesday.
Quoting information from the Civil Guard, the news agency names him as C.R.N.K., aged 41, and says he was stopped on the N-332 road in Torrevieja last Saturday evening. Officers pulled him over for driving with the incorrect lights and tested him for alcohol after they realised that he had been drinking.