http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2005/06/11/wcosta11.xml
Vigilante expats take on Spain's gangs
By Isambard Wilkinson in Alicante
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 11/06/2005
Britons living on the Spanish coast have formed vigilante groups to counter criminal gangs who use guns and knock-out gas to rob victims in their homes.
A series of robberies and the recent murder of a Briton have again highlighted the issue of security for many expatriates on the hundreds of miles of coastline from Marbella in the south to the east coastal region of Valencia.
Stephen Hall, 48, a telecommunications businessman who has lived in Spain for five years, was asleep at home when he was gassed and his house robbed.
advertisement"I knew nothing about it," he said. "I went to bed at 2am and woke at 7am. They had stolen jewellery, computers and mobiles phones. The usual."
George, an ex-publican who did not wish to give his surname, had been in Spain for a little over a week when he was gassed and burgled last week.
Like thousands of Britons, and other northern Europeans, he had come to Spain to live out his retirement in the sunny and relatively cheap "costas". He is now considering whether to leave.
A fortnight ago Winston Mills, 67, was shot dead in front of his wife at their villa at Gea y Truyols in Murcia in the south-east of the country. The killer was allegedly a 17-year-old who had escaped from an approved school who jumped over Mr Mills's garden fence. Mr Mills tried to chase the youth off the property but the assailant turned and shot him at point blank range in the abdomen with a 12-bore shotgun.
In another case a consular official, who did not want to give his name, described how he once woke up feeling groggy and staggered to the bathroom where he vomited before passing out.
He realised later that morning that someone had entered his home during the night and gassed him and his family before robbing them.
In reaction to the spate of crimes residents in one development near Benidorm blocked roads leading to their estate with sandbags and mounted vigilante patrols.
The costas often provide the most clement conditions for all types of criminal. The area is awash with feuding international criminal gangs, laundered dirty money and crooked local authorities feeding off a construction boom.
Wealthy retired northern Europeans seeking shangri-la in the sun provide just another source of petty cash for often savage small-time gangs.
Local mayors have promised to set up emergency task forces to cope with the crimes.
The Civil Guard has mounted Operation Insomnia and has had some success by arresting members of rapacious Albanian and Romanian gangs.
But a foreign resident pressure group, Enough is Enough, complained last week that extra police protection that was promised had not yet arrived and held a protest march demanding more security for the area.
The group's spokesman said: "They had promised that an elite Guardia Civil police unit would be deployed to the area, but in reality they were just trying to placate us."
Spanish officials and British diplomats are playing down the issue by stressing that the attacks are isolated incidents.
That view is also shared by a number of British residents who have set up neighbourhood watch schemes, often run by retired British police officers.
They reject the "Costa del Fear" epithet, saying that despite sensationalist claims in the British press of violent crime Spain is still a safer place to live than Britain. The neighbourhood watch schemes are set to take off across the entire region after their success in areas around Torrevieja.
James Herbert, a former detective who is the vice-president of one such association, said: "There has been a lot of scaremongering. OK, the Spanish police are now playing catch up as they become accustomed to the new brand of crime that has arrived with the wave of foreigners. But they are getting there."
Mr Hall, despite being the victim of a costa-style robbery agreed. "I have been beaten up at Gillingham railway station and robbed three times in four years in Manchester. There is crime everywhere. Look on your own doorstep," he said.
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