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Wednesday, April 12, 2006
A pigeon flies over empty deckchairs on a beach in the well off resort of Marbella on Spain's Costa del Sol. The Spanish government has dissolved the town council of the Mediterranean resort of Marbella, which is embroiled in a multi-billion dollar real estate scam. "Corruption is ingrained right along the Costa del Sol in the name of tourism," insists Inmaculada Galvez, a lawyer who in recent years has specialised in denouncing corrupt property speculators along the southern Spanish coast.
And she is barely impressed by operation "Malaya," the recent crackdown by the authorities which has seen Marisol Yague, mayor of the well-heeled town of Marbella and a former singer of Andalusian pop songs, arrested along with a swathe of her close associates.
Spanish authorities on Friday dissolved the municipal council -- but that move should have come far sooner as, "from 2000, there was the basis for doing so", says Galvez, 46, sitting in her Malaga office.
Local politicians put the explosion in new properties in the region down to tourism demand but for Galvez that is a mere pretext.
"Andalusia does not live off tourism but off cement," she asserts.
"They're not building hotels but second homes.
"I've said a thousand times that corruption was penetrating society," Galvez adds.
Last October she was present along with examining Magistrate Miguel Angel Torres when Jorge Gonzalez, head of legal services in the Marbella town hall planning department, lifted the lid on some of the local practices.
It was Torres who a year earlier launched operation "White Whale," making 60 arrests of people suspected of being linked to a money laundering network worth around 250 millions euros (300 million dollars). One of those arrested was the mayor of the Costa town of Manilva.
Gonzalez "began to tell all" and off went Torres to find the public prosecutor.
Galvez has been trying to rally politicians to the anti-corruption cause since 1997, having joined forces with journalist-writer Felix Bayon, who penned a novel about Mafia figures with Marbella as the backdrop.
As green spaces in the town began to shrink, their pressure group launched 14 complaints but the theft of judicial archives saw the due process of investigation become bogged down.
Last year, the regional government of Andalusia finally said it was withdrawing the Marbella town council's right to deal with urban affairs but that did not stop Galvez slamming the political class as irresponsible and passive.
The biggest scandal of its kind that Spain has known is still only in its infancy, having burst to the surface since March 29 with 24 arrests.
On Friday, the Spanish government formally dissolved the Marbella municipal council. The affair has even embroiled the head of the municipal police, Rafael Del Pozo, freed on bail Wednesday amid allegations that turned a blind eye to various irregularities, as well as abuse of power and the illicit ownership of firearms.
Police have seized assets worth 2.4 billion euros from suspects in operation "Malaya," those assets including villas, luxury cars, thoroughbred horses and paintings.
A main suspect, Juan Antonio Roca, who was controversial former mayor Jesus Gil's one-time deputy in the Marbella planning department, is said by police to have amassed a "huge fortune" in acquiring villas, luxury cars, prize bulls and art -- including a Miro painting that he hung up over his jacuzzi.
Despite its posh villas and marble promenade the town hall is facing bankruptcy, owing 86 million euros to social security.
While the town hall goes short, investigators found 360,000 euros in cash at the house of deputy mayor and former anti-corruption campaigner Isabel Garcia Marcos. They also froze around 1,000 bank accounts.
The government's decision to dissolve the town council, an historic first for Spain, came about in accordance with a law which allows action against local authorities whose "management seriously harms the general interest."
Until the next municipal elections on May 27 next year Marbella will be run by a team designated by the regional authorities.
But "the toughest work remains to be done," warned anti-corruption prosecutor Antonio Salinas.
"We've just started. We have to examine and cross-reference account, scrutinise societies and see how they are financed." |
