English gangster has fallen victim to extradition, just like Ronnie Knight and Kenneth
Noye.
The Brit Costa Gangster has been eclipsed by Europe's new mafias.
It's true that lean, mean eastern Europeans, African and South American pretenders to
the throne, are taking over the streets from Madrid to Torremolinos, Colombians have
cornered the market in robbery, Yugoslavians concentrate on payrolls, Romanians are
into people trafficking. The list is endless, Nigerians, Bulgarians, Moroccans, all
looking for a cut of a billion euro industry.
Meanwhile, Mr British Big is perceived to be about as threatening as a wet weekend
in Blackpool. But there is always going to be fat earnings in sex, drugs, sangria - and
now Spain’s crashed property market.
The real hardcore Brits abroad though aren't going anywhere. The Costa del Sol was
reminded of the ruthlessness sun-soaked gangsters by a mysterious crash on 'Death
Road', the notorious M430, near Mijas. Stewart ‘Speccy’ Boyd, a well-known British
gangland enforcer, died instantly when his top of the range Audi TT Sports left the
road in wholly unexpected circumstances. His girlfriend and their children died with
him.
The road was straight and dry. The absolute opposite of his life. Boyd was just 40 but
had a record of terror stretching 20 years into the back streets of Glasgow.
Weeks before his death he'd completed an 18-month sentence for witness
intimidation. As he left prison, he flew out to Malaga and began to be seen in all the
best places. He was known to dress well and was a regular at the Hugo Boss boutique
in Porte Benuse where a shirt costs a month's salary. He was also known to be into
drug dealing and protection rackets, both major earners in this part of Andalucia. It is
rumoured that he died because of a £2.5m cocaine debt to the Russian Mafia.
Mijas is the expanding mecca of British-owned time-shares and hotels. But everybody
in the know there still refuses talk about why Boyd was in the area on that fateful day.
Strangely, minutes after arriving at a sumptuous timeshare complex, less than a
couple of miles from where he died, I was revealed as a journalist. Immediately I
was presented with a bottle of champagne and dispatched in a paid-for taxi back to
my hotel in the appropriately named Danger Road, Torrimolinos.
The message was frighteningly obvious.
On the face of it, a lot has changed in Torremolinos in the last decade. It's as if Bob
Guccioni had been brought into to redesign the topless beaches. Now it's all collagen
lips pouting above silicone breasts. It's certainly got bigger, in every way. More
hotels, more McDonald's, more Burger Kings. But the streets still stink of rotting
rubbish and bad drains. The ocean is like an open sewer. Nightly, caches of hashish
are dumped three miles off shore for local fishermen to net.
Many of the hundreds of bars along the mountainous San Miguel Street operate as
money launderers and you can actually order a prostitute in one prominent
supermarket.
Marbella, 20 miles up the road, isn't the poser's paradise it used to be in those
hedonistic days of sunbathing criminals. The days of posing along the front in your
Porsche Carrerra ended when the council decided to pedestrianise the promenade.
Egg and chips is three times dearer than anywhere else in Spain. Half-naked lady-
boys beg unashamedly along the sea front.
That's not to say all the flash is gone - take a trip round the cluster of jewellers in the
old town and Orange Square. Diamonds as big as your shoe. Jewellery no honest man
ought to be able to afford - watches by Gucchi, diamonds by DeBeer and jewellery by
Cartier. Armed guards patrol arrogantly outside.
It was Prince Alfonso von Hohenlohe who spotted the potential of this part of
Andalucia in 1946. On a whim he bought Finca Santa Margarita, near Porte Benuse, a
sprawling hacienda with a magnificent tower. And suddenly it was party time in the
sun. For the next ten years his beautiful friends visited - and many of them never
bothered to go home again. So, in 1957 Prince Alf turned his home into the Marbella
Club and the rich and the famous started to pay for the privilege of attending his
parties.
And that's where it all began: the sun, the money and the lack of an extradition
agreement between the UK and Spain. The British gangsters buzzed around the rich
like flies round honey pots. Now these old survivors of the 60s and the 70s are the
honey pots, whether they are property developers, time-share executives or buy-off-
plan cowboys. This is the Costa del Crime a decade into the Millennium.
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