Costa del Crime Campaign Nets Most Wanted Fugitive
February 22nd, 2011
Spanish police have arrested a suspected drug trafficker just hours after his name and photo appeared on a list of Britain’s 10 most wanted fugitives who are believed to have fled to Spain.
Everardus Wijtvliet, 29, a Dutch national, was detained on Monday night in Tenerife, in Spain’s Canary Islands as part of the campaign called Operation Captura.
Hours before his arrest, Wijtvliet’s name and photograph appeared on a list of Britain’s 10 most wanted fugitives who British police believe have bolted to Spain.
“Operation Captura has experienced an early success, with the arrest of one of the Most Wanted within 24 hours of the campaign’s launch,” Crimestoppers said on its website.
British police believe the other suspects are also hiding out in Spanish coastal resorts. They are suspected of crimes including child sex offences, kidnapping, robbery and drug smuggling.
They include the grandson of notorious London underworld enforcer “Mad” Frankie Fraser and a Glaswegian wanted over the supermarket murder of Scotland’s “public enemy number one”, Kevin “Gerbil” Carroll.
Details of all 10 men will be posted by Crimestoppers on a ‘most wanted’ website targeting the region. Several Spanish coastal resorts have been dubbed the ‘Costa del Crime’ since the 1970s because hundreds of wanted British criminals are thought to have fled there.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the Spanish police authorities are also involved in Operation Captura. Several waves of appeals, first launched in October 2006, have led to the arrest of 38 suspects out of 50 appeals.
“Operation Captura is helping make the expat community in Spain an uncomfortable place for fugitives,” said Ken Gallagher, Soca’s head of European operations. “Having the public’s attention focused on these individuals goes a long way to making it harder for them to hide and should act as a warning that Spain is no safe haven for British criminals.
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