Orihuela Costa sits 500km north of Marbella where Brits flock to on holiday every year, but is reportedly the homeland of numerous gangsters and criminals
A Spanish holiday hotspot has been dubbed a breeding ground for “evil” and is flooded by fugitives who live on Russian money, it has been claimed.
Orihuela Costa – 500km north of Marbella – is home to a plethora of investors and is known as a safe haven of criminals. Since the turn of the century, the region south of Alicante has seen an influx of both money and crime.
The area, which until recent years was mere dustland, is now said to be filled with criminals looking to lay low and go undisturbed by authorities as they carry out their illicit activities.
Journalist David Pamies, from the Spanish outlet Información, told the Liverpool Echo: “Torrevieja, Orihuela Costa, Guardamar [del Segura], all the south of Alicante, it’s an area in which many people live come to live, to start over, normal people.
“It’s also an area that serves the bad guys, people who dedicate themselves to making a living doing evil, to also live and work without problems, and have a place to hide, and be able to deploy their work without problems.”
Vicki Reilly, an expat who has lived in the area for 30 years, said many people can assume a “new alias” the moment they step off the plane in Alicante Airport.
Reilly said: “There is a lot of crime here because the first thing that anybody does, whoever they are, when they commit a crime, is leave the country, don’t they? That’s what they do.
“We hear a lot of complaints in the UK about immigrants coming, you know, and [claims that] they’ve committed crimes in other countries. But that’s what people do here, they commit a crime and, so, what’s the easiest country to go to [for British people]? It’s Spain.
“I think Spain is just the most familiar for people. They do go to other European countries as well, but I do think Spain particularly, it’s got this strong connection, hasn’t it, with British holidays.”
The area is also flooded with Russian money, according to the ECHO, with influences everywhere. The town centre sees a Russian flag illuminated on a street sign just down from a Russian supermarket, the publication reports.
Former Brookside actor Philip Foster – who stole over £13 million using a modelling scam – is one of those fugitives who have chosen the area to hide.
There are also countless other Brits who have been embroiled in grisly acts of violence in the region.
Last year a man from Merseyside was shot over 10 times while he sat in a black car in an underground car park.
Weeks later a 29-year-old Brit was shot dead near to the car park in an incident understood to be in connection. A source said the man was “tortured” before being “put out of his misery”.
Speaking on the violence the area has seen in the last 18 months, Pamies said: “For maybe a couple of years it’s very dangerous or it seems more dangerous, or the feeling of insecurity is higher, and then it calms down.
“During the last 30 years, that has happened in several periods. This [violence in the Orihuela Costa], it’s true that it seems like there’s like an escalation, in the sense of what you’re talking about, because sometimes, revenge or settling of scores has spilled over to people who had nothing to do with it.”