Mafia gunmen and holiday thugs are ruining our new lives in the sun... we don't want to live in the Costa del Crime

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EXCLUSIVEMafia gunmen and holiday thugs are ruining our new lives in the sun... we don't want to live in the Costa del Crime
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By LAURENCE DOLLIMORE and ARTHUR PARASHARand PERKIN AMALARAJ
Published:08:44 BST, 3 May 2025 |Updated:08:52 BST, 3 May 2025
British expats have revealed their anxieties over living in the Costa del Sol, following a massive surge of gang violence.
More than 100 mafia groups are said to be operating along this 90 mile stretch of coastline, situated in Spain's southernmost, and poorest, region of Andalucia.
The holiday hotspot has long been a centre of operations for organised crime, thanks to its strategic location as the first port of call for hashish and arms from Africa, and cocaine from South America.
But fears of a new turf war are growing following a series of shootings, assassinations and stabbings in the heart of rival territories.
British expats told MailOnline this week that they are fed-up with increasingly brazen thugs who are 'tarnishing' the resort's image.
Meanwhile, local sources revealed how a years-long rivalry between English, Dutch and other clans is likely behind the escalation of violence.
It comes after a 32-year-old Liverpudlian was gunned down in the middle of the street in Mijas on April 21 - just a 20-minute drive from the villa of Charlie Mullins, Britain's richest plumber.
The murder happened in a street called Don Jose de Orbaneja Street, where there is a well-known tennis and padel tennis club called Club del Sol as well as a neighbouring holiday resort called Finca Naundrup which has sports facilities.
British expats told MailOnline this week that they are fed-up with increasingly brazen thugs who are 'tarnishing' the resort's image. This burning car was dumped after a Liverpudlian was gunned down and killed in Mijas on April 21
The Costa del Sol welcomes millions of visitors a year but there are fears over its level of crime. Pictured: Fuengirola city beach
According to sources, things changed in the Costa del Sol with the burning of the Sisu hotel near Marbella's Puerto Banus in August 2020
On January 2, former Hell's Angel member and ex-MMA fighter Saman Baghi, 34, was shot outside the Real Padel Gym club in Marbella
Timeline of gangland violence
December 7: Dutchman, 25, is assassinated by a hitman with an assault rifle on Calle Asturias in Fuengirola.
December 24: German man of Arabic origin is shot in the Cristamar shopping centre in Puerto Banus, but escapes with injuries.
December 26: Swedish drug traffickers are attacked by a rival clan with assault rifles in Benalmadena, but survive by throwing themselves down an embankment in Arroyo Hondo.
January 2: Former Hell's Angel member and ex-MMA fighter Saman Baghi is shot in the anus and testicles outside the Real Padel Gym club in Marbella.
February 9: Three British men arrested over alleged Costa del Sol kidnap plot involving cryptocurrency broker in Estepona.
April 17: A man is shot in the leg during a family dispute in Portada Alta, Malaga city. Five individuals were arrested.
April 18: A 34-year-old man is shot in the shoulder outside a Marbella nightclub at around 4.30am. He was hospitalised and the suspect fled the scene in a car.
April 21: A 32-year-old British man is shot to death at around 8.15pm after leaving a football match in Calahonda, Mijas. The assailant flees in a car before ditching and burning the vehicle.
April 23: A burned and tied up body is found dumped in a ravine in Mijas, with a hood 'over his head or next to it'. The victim is believed to have been dead for several days.
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The victim was already dead by the time police and paramedics reached the scene.
Locals told cops they had heard between eight and 10 shots being fired. The incident has been described as a gunfight.
Two days later, a bound body of a man was found dumped in a ravine, also in Mijas, although authorities believe he had been dead for several days.
The corpse was found with a hood 'over the head or next to it' and had been partially burned, suggesting he had been tortured before he was killed. It is not yet confirmed whether the two cases are linked.
A week earlier, on Easter Thursday, a man was shot in the shoulder outside a nightclub in Marbella before the attackers fled the scene in a car. That same night, a man was stabbed in the stomach in another Marbella venue.
Hours later, a chiringuito in Torremolinos was burned to the ground in a suspected arson attack. There is currently no suggestion that the fire is linked to gang warfare, but beach clubs have been torched in the past as a warning to people who owed money.
Monday's British victim was walking home from a football match in Finca Naundrup, Calahonda, when at least one masked man pulled up in a dark-coloured Cupra and opened fire.
The Brit died in the car park of the Club del Sol tennis club.
An employee, pointing to the murder scene, told MailOnline: 'It happened just over there, I wasn't here but my colleagues told me they heard quite a few shots.
'I didn't know him or that he was a gangster, but they are everywhere… here, Marbella, Puerto Banus, you just never know who is who.'
Calahonda and Mijas are filled with apartment blocks, cul-de-sacs and winding streets, making it an ideal place for people who want to lay low.
But some of the more dangerous residents are clashing with decent, upstanding expats.
One Brit living in Calahonda claimed he and his friend were attacked by a group of Englishmen in a bar two weeks ago.
He told MailOnline: 'My friend was visiting me; he is a 62-year-old Swiss social worker, and I am a 74-year-old retired headmaster. The guys were in their 20s and sounded Liverpudlian.
Baghi (pictured) was shot in the anus and testicles as he exited the building in January
The former MMA fighter (pictured) became a high-profile target due to the sheer amount of money he owed
Pictured is the moment that firefighters tried to put a huge blaze out at Marbella club Sisu in 2020
'Brit' in his 30s shot dead in Costa del Sol: Cops 'hunting assassin after getaway car torched'
'The barmaid gave them free shots of Jagermeister and one hit my friend with the shot glass.
'He has three deep gashes on his forehead, a black eye, a broken front tooth and concussion.
'The manager of the bar drove us to Marbella hospital, but just dumped us outside. Then the bar attempted a cover up of the story.
'The local police came but were useless and the four attackers just got away. Incidents like this spoil the lovely Calahonda.
'It was very scary… my friend was lying unconscious in a pool of blood on the bar floor.'
The Brit added: 'People do not want these incidents reported as it damages the reputation of the Costa del Sol.'
The car used in Monday's suspected gangland murder was found dumped and set on fire on the outskirts of Calahonda, with at least one gun inside. There have been no arrests.
The Sisu site was long rumoured to be a meeting point for criminals, particularly the British and Irish
On April 21, the Liverpudlian was shot to death at around 8.15pm after leaving a football match in Calahonda, Mijas. Pictured is the football pitch where the Brit played a game before being gunned down
The murder happened in a street called Don Jose de Orbaneja Street, where there is a well-known tennis and padel tennis club called Club del Sol as well as a neighbouring holiday resort called Finca Naundrup (pictured)
According to Spanish newspaper ABC, the vehicle had German number plates.
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This could be significant to the investigation, according to a local journalist who has lived along the coast for more than three decades.
The source, who has rubbed shoulders with leading cartel members, asked not to be named for security reasons.
He told MailOnline: 'If the plates were German that points to the hit being carried out by the Mocro Maffia.
'The killing would have been a settling of scores and to send a message.
'If you are killed like that you either stole from a cartel, owe them a lot of money or did something to really tick them off.
'Often, small-time drug dealers in the UK think they can move to Marbella and set up operations without problems.
'If I'm a gangster in Rochdale or wherever, and I see pictures of luxury beach clubs and Lamborghinis, I'm going to move there, but these little guys get in trouble with the big dogs.
'Most of the time, they don't want to kill them, they just want them off their turf, they don't realise they're dealing with very serious people.'
The Mocro Maffia refers to a network of highly organised crime gangs, primarily made up of Dutch-Moroccans, and which are run out of the Netherlands and Belgium.
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The Mocro Maffia specialises in drug trafficking, particularly cocaine, money laundering and assassinations, and is known for its violent turf wars.
The Costa del Sol is no different, with the Dutch reportedly having taken over key locations from the English and Irish in recent years.
According to the source, things changed with the burning of the Sisu hotel near Marbella's Puerto Banus in August 2020.
The site was long rumoured to be a meeting point for criminals, particularly the British and Irish.
It was left completely destroyed by the blaze, which investigators found had three different starting points - although its high-tech security cameras are still attached and operational.
Police said three French nationals had been seen filling up canisters with petrol nearby, just moments before the fire began.
In February, three British men were dramatically arrested by Spanish police over an alleged Costa del Sol kidnap plot involving a UK cryptocurrency broker
Spanish police released footage showing the moment they surrounded an Audi - before officers cuffed the occupants on the ground at gunpoint
Officers raided an apartment in the resort of Estepona where the suspects were staying
'Since then, the English and Irish have been more based in Mijas, La Cala de Mijas and Calahonda,' the source added, 'while the Mocro Maffia have gained ground in Nueva Andalucia, Puerto Banus and Marbella, which have coincidentally seen a surge in Moroccan barbers and shisha bars.'
The Real Gym and Padel Tennis Club that sits directly behind the Sisu has seen its own fair share of violence over the past year.
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On January 2, a German man of Arabic origin was shot in the anus and testicles as he exited the building.
Former Hell's Angel member and ex-MMA fighter Saman Baghi, 34, allegedly 'owed money to everyone', resulting in him becoming a target.
The Mocro Maffia is one of the most feared and powerful gangs in Europe. It is estimated to generate €20billion per year in the Netherlands alone, according to Dutch investigator Pieter Tops.
But they are just one of more than 100 mafias operating along the Costa del Sol, including the Italians, Colombians and eastern Europeans.
But the newest kids on the block are the Albanians, according to police sources from UDYCO - a specialised task force created to tackle the scourge of drug trafficking.
Speaking to national newspaper La Razon in February, they said the Albanians are 'fighting tooth and nail for the throne' with the Mocro Maffia.
In November, a British man was arrested by Spanish police in the UAE in connection to a murder that took place in Costa del Sol last August August. Image shows the scene of the house in Estepona, Spain where the murder took place
A 36-year-old Serbian man was shot several times in the back during an alcohol and drug-fuelled house party in August in a villa in Estepona
They explained how there has been an increase in violence between clans since the start of 2025 due to the falling prices of cocaine, which, within a year, have plummeted from €30,000 per kilo to as low as €17,000.
This is causing an increase in so-called 'vuelcos', which see gangs steal drug shipments from their rivals and sell them on.
According to UDYCO sources, these robberies result in revenge hits being ordered, which is made all the more easier by the military grade weapons flooding into Spain through Africa.
More alarmingly, teenage boys are allegedly being recruited by the Mocro Maffia to carry out such assassinations.
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In November 2024, GRECO and UDYCO dismantled a cell in Alicante that recruited minors from Sweden and Denmark through a Telegram channel to commit murders and bomb attacks. The leader was a Swedish boy of Moroccan origin, aged just 14 years old.
Their modus operandi was to smuggle a minor into Spain with an assault rifle to 'shoot indiscriminately' at rivals. They charged between €15,000 and €50,000 per 'job'.
A 17-year-old was also arrested in May last year after traveling from Sweden to Spain to kill a member of a rival motorcycle gang.
The police sources claimed that the top mafia bosses are no longer living on the Costa del Sol, but prefer to run their operations from Dubai, which has no extradition treaty, going so far as to label the city the 'epicentre' of drug traffickers.
'Dubai's drug lords are the ones who run the market. They tell their lieutenants how much drugs they should bring in each month, and that's it. They enjoy luxury and impunity,' they said.
The leaders of the Kinahan cartel are thought to have moved to Dubai in 2016, where they currently remain in hiding after international authorities placed a joint €15m bounty on their heads.
But Spain's southern coast will always be a hotbed of criminality thanks to its strategic location.
Alongside Galicia in the north, it acts as the first port of call for Europe-bound cocaine from South America.
The Colombians are even using submarines to smuggle the white powder across the Atlantic, before unloading it onto smaller vessels at sea, which then ferry it up river streams in Andalucia.
The Colombians are even using submarines to smuggle drugs across the Atlantic. In June last year, four Colombians were arrested after a six-hour maritime chase off the coast of Cadiz
They smuggle them across, before unloading it onto smaller vessels at sea Drugs are then ferried up river streams in Andalucia. Footage shows Colombians being arrested last June
Meanwhile, tonnes of hashish are transported across the Gibraltar Strait from Africa, before being dumped along the Costa del Sol, and increasingly as far north as the Costa Blanca and Barcelona.
Such distances are now possible thanks to 'floating petrol stations', which are effectively boat crews hired by cartels to sit and wait in the sea with canisters of petrol, allowing delivery vessels to refuel.
The sheer relentlessness of the cartels has, at times, left authorities in Spain overwhelmed, both at the local and regional level.
This week, following the spike in violence, politicians in Estepona blasted a 'serious security deficit' caused by the falling number of local police officers.
In a statement, the PSOE party criticised how the force, which numbered 190 officers back in 2011, has since fallen to 120, despite the town's population having grown from 64,000 to almost 79,000.
The demand for more police on the beat came following a shootout between squatters in the area of Cancelada on Tuesday.
The street was placed on lockdown after around a dozen squatters who were kicked out of a home returned with guns and fired off rounds of shots.
Footage shared with MailOnline shows a man in a blue tracksuit running down a street while being chased by men in black uniforms.
They then begin fighting him while others catch up and join in the ruckus, including a woman in a green tracksuit who is thrown to the floor.
The shootout sparked a major response from Spanish police, who sealed off the area and enacted a lockdown.
The alleged shooters fled the scene in a vehicle and remain wanted by police. There were no reported injuries.
Meanwhile, in Marbella, the city council led by Mayor Angeles Muñoz is continuing to ramp up security measures.
There are now more than 360 surveillance cameras covering the resort, while this week it announced it is trialling body cameras for police officers, which will stream live to the city's central command post.
Mijas town hall did not respond to a request for a comment on its security plan.
Costa del Sol turns on British tourists: Fed-up Malaga locals tell holidaymakers to 'f*** off from here' in new anti-tourism campaign after Tenerife was hit by similar graffiti
by GERARD COUZENS
Residents on Spain's Costa del Sol have become the latest to vent their fury over the way tourism has affected their lives, with angry stickers being plastered on holiday let flats.
Angry locals in Tenerife made their feelings clear earlier this month with graffiti calling for tourists to go home in and around the southern resort of Palm Mar.
Now people living in the centre of Malaga have become the latest to raise their voice against the problems caused by the hordes of visitors they say have impacted on their lives.
Stickers have appeared in the town, which is popular with British holidaymakers, over the front of tourist apartment blocks with messages in Spanish saying: 'f*** off from here' and 'stinking of tourists.'
Others that have appeared, alluding to the same problems expressed by Tenerife residents about the lack of affordable accommodation caused by mass tourism, say: 'This used to be my house' and 'A family used to live here'.
One of the stickers read 'ApesTando a Turista - Spanish for 'stinking of tourist'
Locals have been coming up with alternatives revolving around the AT signs on the front of holiday apartment blocks, short for Apartamento Turistico in Spanish, in a play on words game
People living in the centre of Malaga have become the latest to raise their voice against the problems caused by the hordes of visitors
A Malaga bar owner who was recently told he had to leave the home he has lived in for the past ten years so it can be used by tourists staying on short-term lets, has been linked to the campaign.
He recently organised a social media initiative proposing customers come up with alternatives revolving around the AT signs on the front of holiday apartment blocks, short for Apartamento Turistico in Spanish, in a play on words game.
They came up with imaginative proposals which included 'A Tu puta casa' and ApesTando a Turista - Spanish for 'f*** off home' and 'stinking of tourist.'
The bar owner, known as Dani Drunko, said overnight as he admitted things had got a 'bit out of hand': 'Everyone has joined the cause and got really involved, so much so that they're printing off stickers and putting them all over streets in the centre.
Revealing his own accommodation plight and saying he had friends in the same boat, he told respected Malaga-based paper Sur: 'I live in a neighbourhood of Malaga called Fuente Olletas and was told a few weeks ago the owner wouldn't be renewing my rental contract and I had to leave because the property was going to readapted for tourist lets.
'Every day I'm receiving photos of new stickers and people that are making it go viral. There's a lot of movement because citizens are sick of the situation. I only proposed the idea of the phrases, I lit the fuse.'
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Dani Perez, Secretary General of the left-wing PSOE party in Malaga, flagging up one of the stickers plastered over a tourist apartment block with coded key holders by the front door, said in a blast on X formerly Twitter: 'All this used to be the centre, as this sticker says next to several tourist apartments.
'You walk along the streets of Malaga and it's practically impossible to find a residential building which hasn't got a padlock and passcode.'