Outlaw motorcycle gangs linked to crime wave in Costa del Sol
Police authorities in Spain believe that a crackdown on criminal biker gangs in northern Europe could be behind a crime wave that saw 24 murders in the Costa del Sol province of Malaga over the last year.
While used to combating the criminal activities of Eastern European and South American mafias on the country’s southern coast, Spanish police are now facing a new threat from outlaw motorcycle gangs.
The development comes after the Netherlands and Germany cracked down on organisations such as the Hells Angels, prompting members to move to the sunnier climes of the Costa del Sol.
After a surge of crimes in the Netherlands connected to outlaw biker gangs, courts in the country have banned four organisations, starting with Satudarah and Bandidos in 2018, and in 2019 adding No Surrender and Hells Angels.
The public prosecution said of the Hells Angels: “There is a culture of violence within the club that endangers society and the rule of law.”
Germany has not gone so far, but individual chapters have been closed down and several gangs have been forbidden from wearing their colours.
The inspector in charge of the Spanish National Police’s team of investigators specialising in motorcycle gangs has told The Telegraph that the influx is behind the emergence of more violent and organised crime involving such groups in Spain.
They add it could help to explain the spike in murders within the Costa del Sol’s gangland as more groups battle for their slice of the action.
“The Costa del Sol has long been a favoured destination for Serbian, Russia, Italian and Colombian mafias, because of its quality of life and the amount of money on display; rich criminals can go unnoticed,” said the inspector, who wishes to remain anonymous.
“But we have seen an increase in tension between criminal organisations in the area over the past year,” he adds, explaining that the traditionally low-level criminal activity involving Spanish bikers has now taken on a whole new dimension.
“And the other organisations already settled in Spain will have something to say about this new element.”
A spate of execution-style killings in the autumn 2019 saw the number of murders pass the 2018 total of 21 in Malaga province as gangs battle over control of drug imports and a series of criminal activities in the Costa del Sol.
The Spanish police expert says that biker gangs are involved in security and protection rackets in and around nightspots, while also selling drugs in those areas and controlling prostitution.
But the gangs also provide a “ready-made international network” to distribute drugs across Europe for mafias who import into Spain, helped by loyal supporter groups whose biker members can act as lookouts and offer logistical assistance.
Biker gang members will feel obliged to welcome a colleague from a chapter in another country who needs to escape from the law.
Summer 2018 saw the arrest in Spain of two Dutch bikers accused of murder in the Netherlands, including a man picked up in Marbella who used the alias ‘King Kong’ and who is wanted for two contract killings.
In 2016 Spanish police arrested Dutch biker Emiel Brummer, accused of a series of gangland killings on the orders of notorious UK gangster Robert Dawes, now serving time in France.
Meanwhile, biker activity may also be on the rise in neighbouring Portugal, where prosecutors have charged 89 Hells Angels members with four attempted murders after a massive fight in a Lisbon restaurant in July.
