15 - 21 February 2018
COSTA DE ALMERÍA YOUR PAPER, YOUR VOICE, YOUR OPINION Photo by credit Guardia Civil, National Police and AgenciaTributaria
ISSUE NO. 1702
Armed bank robbers at large after heist TWO men are on the run after taking hundreds of euros in cash from a bank in the El Alquian neighbourhood of Almeria City. The armed robbers entered the bank and began threatening workers who were inside. There were no customers there when the men robbed the branch and no-one was injured. They left the bank with an unspecified amount of money but it is believed they made off with a few hundred euros, according to Spanish media. Police tried to block roads leading out of the area but the robbers were able to escape. Officers are now investigating the heist which took place at 2pm last Thursday afternoon. The robbery follows another bank heist in the province in January. Two hooded thieves reportedly entered a branch in Gador and took cash at gunpoint before fleeing in a getaway car with a third accomplice. Robberies in homes and businesses fell by 10 per cent in the province in the first half of 2017 according to data from Spain’s Interior Ministry. Violent robberies such as these bank heists fell further by 20 per cent in the same period. Almeria’s overall crime rate dropped by 2.8 per cent.
DRUG BUST: Police seized several kilos of cocaine from the warehouse-turned-laboratory.
Drug ring reeled in! €25m fine for cocaine traffickers after raid by Joe Gerrard The members of a gang who smuggled cocaine from Latin America to Spain via Almeria have been handed jail sentences and fines of up to €25 million by the country’s High Court. Five of the 14 defendants were arrested in Almeria following a police probe into the drugs trafficking network which had set up a laboratory near Las Salinas de Cabo de Gata. The network had operations in Valencia, Madrid and Cadiz and those convicted have each been sentenced to a total of 22 years in prison following the court ruling. Gang members including their leaders in Columbia organised shipments of the drug from South America to Spain where it arrived hidden in
containers at the ports of Valencia and Cadiz. The cocaine was hidden among bananas and palm flour and was then taken to Almeria to be refined in a warehouse the group had turned into a drugs laboratory. The site, referred to by those in the network as ‘the workshop,’ was set up to extract the drug and package it for sale. Police raided the warehouse and found almost six kilos of cocaine close to 90 per cent pure, according to analysis.
The amount discovered was valued at around €275,000 but it would have made the gang much more once it had been mixed with other substances before being sold. Officers also seized caustic soda, weighing scales, a hydraulic press and an inventory of chemicals used to produce the drug for consumption. The network used the Madrid agency to manage their money. Anti-money laundering officers from the Guardia Civil raided it during the national operation which took place in July 2014.
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€120,000 paid out for error THE Andalucian Health Service (SAS) has paid out €120,000 to a family for malpractice after a 70-year-old woman died while undergoing an operation. The husband and two children of the 70-year-old received the compensation after the woman’s death during neck surgery at Torrecardenas Hospital. The patient developed a blood clot after an operation on her thyroid gland. Fluid began to enter her throat which made it difficult for her to breathe. Doctors then attempted to open her throat to create a passage for air when they could not place a tube in her throat. The woman’s windpipe was torn during this procedure, which led to blood and air going into her lungs and caused them to collapse. She then died of lung and heart failure, according to reports. The Patient Advocate association, which deals with hospital malpractice cases, said doctors had taken no action to avoid the consequences of the woman’s torn windpipe. The family of the woman filed a complaint in court against the hospital which led to the opening of legal proceedings.