Brexit has made life harder for British fugitives who head to Spain to attempt to escape justice by hiding out on the Costas, the head of the elite Spanish police unit which hunts them down said.
Chief Inspector Fernando González, who leads the National Police Fugitive Group, said for UK criminals who hide out in Spain, Brexit rules force them to get false passports from other criminals or risk being detected by authorities enforcing limits on UK nationals.
From 2020, British people can only stay in the European Union for up to 90 days within every 180.
However, getting a fake passport is not easy – or cheap. Criminals need contacts in the underworld to get their hands on these documents, which many do not have.
“Getting a fake passport can be difficult to do. You need to have the right criminal contacts. Most people leave Britain or other countries and come here in a rush and don’t have those contacts or they do not have the money,” Chief Insp. González told i.
“Since Brexit, these Britons cannot simply come over to Spain and disappear (using their British passports). If they have their own passports, they are limited to the amount of time they can stay. Or they might be caught in routine checks. Brexit has made it harder for these people.”
For years, the so-called Costa del Crime was a refuge for shady people in sunny climes.
Nevertheless, even in the era of international arrest warrants, the appeal of living under the Iberian sun out of the reach of the law endures.
The Spanish National Police fugitive unit, which is composed of 20 specialist officers, tracks down drug dealers, murderers, sex offenders or fraudsters who are believed to be in Spain.
The unit receives requests to find about 1,000 criminals every year from law enforcement agencies around the world. They arrested about 400 in 2023, of which 14 were British.
The National Crime Agency works hand in hand with their Spanish counterparts, providing intelligence but cannot make arrests on foreign soil.
Many British fugitives try to disappear into “expat colonies”, where it is harder for Spanish police to work undetected.
The Costa Blanca, home to Alicante, Benidorm and Torrevieja, or the Costa del Sol in southern Spain, are favourite haunts. Barcelona is also popular.
“British criminals go to pubs where if we walked in we would stick out a mile because of the way we look or our accents,” said an officer from the fugitives unit who asked not to be named as she works undercover.
“They want to come here to enjoy the same food, drinks and the company of their countrymen but just under the Spanish sun.”
Chief Insp. González says each fugitive will have a different way of hiding.
Some will use underworld contacts to allow them to continue their criminal enterprises while others rely on special skills to stay ahead of the police.
In 2018, police arrested a German survival specialist in the countryside near Barcelona. Joseph Brech was accused of raping and killing an 11-year-old Dutch boy. In 2020, he was condemned to 12 years for kidnap and sexual assault by a Dutch court. Working 24/7, the fugitives unit never gives up the hunt for criminals on the run, Chief Insp. González says.
“It is a bit like they say in Narcos. The criminals have to be lucky every time, but we only have to be lucky once,” he said.
The unit has two branches. One tracks down international criminals while the other wing specialises in criminals from Spain who have fled abroad or Latin Americans who are believed to be in Spain.
Normally, the squad remains in the shadows as much of their work is undercover.
But in 2023 their work was made into a series for Spanish television called Fugitivos (Fugitives).
In one episode, the camera crew follow police as they arrest an elderly man in a small Spanish town but the grey-haired pensioner was in fact one of Italy’s most wanted gangsters.
It is the end of a 20-year manhunt for convicted mafia killer Gioacchino Gammino and another success for the Fugitive Group.
If most British fugitives struggle to find false passports, Richard Baxter was an exception.
He tried to pass himself off as a Romanian using a fake passport to make it seem as if he was a European Union national.
The 50-year-old British drug dealer kept two antique muskets, a pistol and a samurai sword at his holiday chalet in Spain.
When armed police came knocking on his door in Valencia in August, Baxter also had a fake Romanian identity card and driving licence and used to wear a disguise when he left his home.
The Met Police said Baxter, who pleaded guilty to supplying heroin and cocaine and money laundering earlier this month at Kingston Crown Court in Surrey this month, had built up a £1.5m property empire through crime.
He had four properties in south-east England including a house in Surrey, as well as a holiday chalet in Torrent, Spain, the Met said.
He was detained as part of an investigation into criminal gangs operating in London and will be sentenced on December 5.
The Civil Guard, which is Spain’s other national police force, also has a specialised fugitive’s unit.
In 2022, its officers arrested Britain’s most wanted woman, who had been on the run for almost nine years.
Sarah Panitzke, 48, who was jailed for eight years for fraud for laundering around £1bn through offshore bank accounts, had sparked a worldwide police hunt after investigators believed she was in Spain or the Middle East.
She was arrested while walking her dog in the nondescript town of Santa Barbara, near Tarragona, in Catalonia.
Panitzke, who was extradited back to the UK, was charged with conspiracy to acquire criminal property in relation to her role in a multimillion-pound VAT fraud in 2010, and was found guilty in her absence in 2013.
