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Welcome to "The Rest is Spain" podcast - Mafia Special part two!
In this episode, we take a deep dive into the infamous “Costa del Crime” era of the 1970s and 80s, when Spain’s southern coast became a hotspot for gangsters, fugitives, and organised crime figures from across Europe. From high-profile hideouts to the rise of criminal networks on the Costa del Sol, we explore the stories that shaped this notorious chapter in Spain’s history.
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0:00
dragging them off the street, putting
0:01
them in a car, taking them to the
0:02
airport. It It got to the point where
0:05
the early 80s there were so many of
0:06
these gangsters down here. Charlie
0:08
Wilson, for example, he had a rather
0:10
nasty, gory death where he was,
0:12
>> "Welcome to the Rest is Spain podcast by
0:15
the Olive Press News. This is the second
0:17
part of our mafia special series and I'm
0:20
so excited to have John Clark here today
0:22
who's the author of two fantastic crime
0:25
novels about mafias and crime on the
0:27
costadel soul and of course the editor
0:29
of olive press. He knows all about the
0:31
history of the costadel crime. So John
0:34
tell us more.
0:35
>> Hi Caroline, thank you very much. Yeah I
0:37
two two crime books. one actually called
0:39
Costa Killer, which ostensibly was
0:41
pretty much about uh the the the kind of
0:44
whole time share gangs and the crime
0:46
situation and the Costas back in the
0:48
late 90s, early 2000s. And then the
0:50
other one was on Meline McCann, who was
0:53
obviously connected very heavily to lot
0:55
sorts of uh crime, potential crime
0:56
gangs. So yeah, so I feel like I've
0:59
certainly written a lot about and
1:01
investigated a lot about crime on the
1:03
coast for years indeed. Yeah, I've known
1:05
uh known a fair few gangsters, met a
1:08
fair few gangsters and um been to a few
1:11
of their their hangouts um over the
1:13
years. So, yeah, I feel feel like I kind
1:15
of understand it quite well. The costel
1:17
crime.
1:19
>> Great. So, first of all, where did this
1:22
name come from? Costell crime.
1:24
>> Yeah, it's very interesting. Cosodel
1:26
crime um really came about first of all
1:30
was was 1982 when one of our
1:33
contributors David B who's a ex
1:36
telegraph journalist based in Frolyana
1:39
near Nurka he was asked to do a crime
1:43
series for the Sunday Express looking
1:45
into the proliferation of gangsters from
1:48
the UK who'd moved down to the Costas in
1:51
particular the costel soul back in the
1:53
in the late 60s and 70s
1:55
And it got to the point where the early
1:58
80s there were so many of these
2:00
gangsters down here that it was it kept
2:02
popping up. Anyway, the Sunday Express
2:03
saw an opportunity and they said to uh
2:06
to David, look, can you start looking
2:07
into this? So,
2:09
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short expert is a tide agent of ergo
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David did and over two weeks over two
2:45
Sundays they did a series called the
2:48
costel crime and in there they had a
2:50
little man with a shady hat on
2:52
underneath a palm tree and a sort of
2:54
long mac looking uh quite shifty. Um and
2:59
uh they he he then explained uh the
3:01
hostile crime and h how it come about
3:04
and um ostensibly it started because the
3:07
extradition agreement that uh that the
3:09
UK had with Spain which would actually
3:12
been signed in 1878
3:14
believe it or not as uh it came up to
3:18
1978. At that time Franco had been in
3:21
power for for many years and and pretty
3:23
much England and and Spain weren't
3:25
speaking much anyway. And you know, it
3:28
was pretty easy to move here and pretty
3:29
much get away with what you wanted back
3:30
in the ' 50s and60s. But in the '7s, um,
3:34
with the extradition agreement running
3:36
out 1978,
3:38
no one the Spanish decided they didn't
3:40
want to sign it again. And so what it
3:42
meant was that if any British uh um uh
3:46
police forces wanted to extradite or
3:49
bring people back to face justice back
3:51
in the UK, whether it was for a sex
3:53
offense, whether it was for drug
3:55
trafficking, whether it was for a
3:56
murder, they had no avenue. They had no
4:00
way of doing it. They could not there
4:01
was no possible um method by which they
4:04
could get them back. No legal method. So
4:06
short of like coming over, you know, and
4:08
dumping them in a car, dragging them off
4:11
the street, put them in a car, taking
4:13
them to the airport, they couldn't get
4:15
them back. And in fact, it wasn't until
4:16
1985
4:18
when Spain was looking to join the
4:20
European Union. And they were told,
4:21
"Look, you can join the European Union
4:23
in July by all means, but you've got to
4:25
sign an extradition agreement with
4:27
England and a couple of other countries
4:28
they didn't have agreements with." So
4:30
finally in July 1985 they did sign an
4:32
extradition agreement and then then join
4:35
the European Union and from that point
4:37
onwards things got into motion. So
4:40
eventually certain criminals who had
4:42
been over here for a long time in
4:43
particular Ronny Knight who was here for
4:45
11 years finally they were able to apply
4:48
to get Ronny Knight back to England to
4:50
face justice for 6 million security uh
4:53
um um theft. and he actually wasn't
4:57
actually extra until 1994.
5:00
That shows you how recently um some of
5:02
these criminals were finally brought
5:04
back to justice. Um it was it it was
5:07
finally we were able to sort of get some
5:10
of these old famous old criminals back
5:12
to the UK to face justice and many of
5:14
them did face justice and actually went
5:16
to prison. So that was that that was the
5:18
case of Ronnie Knight.
5:19
>> Good. So there must have been a kind of
5:20
a golden era for these guys, these um
5:24
British crooks coming down to the Costa
5:25
when there was no way they could ever be
5:27
extrad. They could commit whatever crime
5:29
they wanted in the UK, run off to Spain
5:32
and then sit on the beach and even
5:33
continue committing crimes. Is that is
5:35
that how it worked? I I think I think
5:37
what happened if you in the late 60s
5:39
early 70s a lot of the kind of lags of
5:41
criminals in England who'd made money
5:43
decided like you think of the great
5:45
train robbery the famous great train
5:46
robbery there a lot of them move around
5:48
the world and you've got people like
5:49
Ronny Biggs who obviously went to Brazil
5:52
and you had kind of Buster Edwards and
5:54
and Bruce Reynolds the kind of brains
5:55
behind it but two in particular um great
5:59
train robbers Gordon Goody and Charlie
6:02
Wilson ended up in Spain in the on the
6:04
Costa del Sol in Golden goodie was in
6:06
Almaria. So that's not really the costel
6:08
soul but it's the southern coast of
6:09
Anderuthia.
6:11
uh and Charlie Wilson was in Marbs in
6:13
Marbaya and um they kind of lived down
6:16
here and at that time in the late '60s
6:19
early '7s of course the hippies had come
6:22
about in England and it sort of new free
6:25
love movement that of course what was
6:27
fueling that free love movement
6:30
marijuana and and marijuana
6:33
was something that was grown very
6:35
heavily just across the water in Morocco
6:38
uh the so-called k from the from the
6:39
rift mountains
6:41
So these guys were here sort of early
6:42
'7s trying to, you know, work out what
6:45
to do with their lives where they were,
6:46
as you say, just sit on the beach by the
6:48
pool, play a bit of golf. Uh, but
6:50
actually they suddenly saw a great
6:52
opportunity to make a lot more money.
6:55
And so suddenly they were getting
6:57
involved in drug smuggling gangs,
6:59
bringing marijuana over from Morocco
7:02
into Spain and then hot footing it all
7:04
the way through Europe into the UK where
7:05
there was an enormous market growing
7:07
sort of in the 70s. So they ended up
7:09
making money in England, making a
7:11
fortune in, you know, crimes, you know,
7:13
heists in England and robberies and bank
7:16
robbers and whatever, and then came down
7:18
here with their money and ended up
7:19
making even more money um drug
7:21
smuggling. And that's how they these
7:24
guys got really famous.
7:25
>> And what about the Cray associates?
7:28
>> Well, yeah, there I mean again the Cray
7:31
were so famous in England, aren't they?
7:32
And so many films have been made about
7:33
them. Well, there were two uh Cray
7:36
associates down here pretty famously
7:37
down here. One was Mad Frankie Fraser
7:40
and uh the other one was Brown Bred Fred
7:42
i.e. That's Freddy Foreman. And he he
7:45
would he he was a henchman for for the
7:47
craze. But in fact, Mad Frankie Fras as
7:49
well, but Freddy Foreman in particular,
7:52
um you may remember, you may have heard
7:54
of the famous Jack the Hat Mcviti who
7:57
was killed by Reggie Cray um infamously
8:00
and in in rivalry in London. And it was
8:03
uh Freddy Foreman who who actually got
8:05
rid of the body, moved the body and and
8:06
helped clear up. Now, we're going to
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8:31
>> So, those two characters moved down
8:33
here. In fact, mad Frankie Fraser had a
8:35
house in Lala the Mikas. Freddy Foreman
8:37
was in Marba and um actually Mad Frankie
8:40
Fraser's son is still around and uh in
8:43
the area. I've long wanted to meet him
8:45
and he's avoided me so far. But
8:47
hopefully if you're watching this uh Mr.
8:50
Fraser Junior, give me a call. We'd love
8:52
to love to meet you and have a chat. But
8:55
yeah, so the the craze and these are
8:57
just two of the big names who work with
8:58
the craze. There are plenty of other
9:00
people who were down here who had worked
9:04
for the craze and separate figures who,
9:06
you know, who who were linked to them.
9:08
One other character that is often
9:10
connected to them, but isn't actually
9:12
not uh is is someone called Ronny
9:14
Knight. Um I don't know how many of our
9:17
listeners will know who Ronny Knight is,
9:19
but Ronny Knight um they may know his
9:21
ex-wife is Barbara Windsor, the famous
9:23
East Enders soap star.
9:26
she uh and him she actually defended him
9:29
in court in fact and even though they
9:31
were separated divorced she always
9:32
defended him and helped him. He lived
9:35
here extraordinarily for 11 years before
9:38
he was extradited and he uh was here at
9:41
the perfect time because it was when the
9:43
the extradition agreement wasn't working
9:46
and uh so it wasn't in fact until like
9:48
the early 90s they finally got him back
9:50
to England I think it was 94 they
9:52
finally got him in court and put him in
9:54
prison. So, you know, this this is uh uh
9:58
a long association with with the costel
10:01
crime with people who who uh who were
10:04
down here
10:05
>> and these guys that we're talking about,
10:06
did they get up to mischief while they
10:08
were here or were they just on the run
10:10
laying low? You know,
10:13
>> it's interesting. I was at Charlie
10:14
Wilson, for example. He had a rather
10:16
nasty gory death where he was executed
10:19
in his back garden and uh you know
10:22
having made his money in the great train
10:23
robbery he was he then invested in other
10:25
things and other crimes and um you know
10:28
he was quite a character well-known
10:29
figure around Marba and people often say
10:32
they saw him you know in in Bonuse you
10:35
know hanging at the piano bars and you
10:37
know some of the places but he he was
10:40
people would go to his house I think to
10:41
get his autograph even but anyway he
10:43
he'd obviously upset uh someone because
10:46
it was a really random Saturday day and
10:48
they and him and his wife had friends
10:49
over and a guy and a bicycle blonde guy
10:53
with a he had a blonde hair but had a
10:55
baseball cap had been setting him
10:56
sunning himself nearby on a roundabout
10:59
near his house in Marbaya and he at some
11:02
point during the afternoon he'd knocked
11:04
on the front door and said oh I've got a
11:06
message for you from from a colleague of
11:08
yours in London so he was ushered
11:10
through the house into the garden where
11:12
Charlie was was actually preparing a
11:13
barbecue for the family barbecue
11:15
interview with friends in the garden and
11:17
uh they had a discussion uh should we
11:20
say for about 5 minutes which ended up
11:22
with this guy attacking him and shooting
11:24
him twice killing him on his back lawn.
11:27
In fact, one of those dogs uh his
11:29
security dogs also had to be put down
11:31
because this gunman actually broke the
11:33
dog's leg in in the melee. He managed to
11:36
jump over the fence and got away. No one
11:38
ever ever found him. No one ever knew.
11:40
It's never been proven who actually um
11:42
killed Mr.
11:43
But that was one of the train robbers
11:45
dead.
11:47
>> Okay. So, Cosadel Crime, we know where
11:50
it all came from. And our next episode
11:53
is going to be all about where it's
11:55
today. All the gangs that are here
11:57
today. So, that's really interesting.
11:59
Well, you're going to be talking about
12:01
that, aren't you?
12:02
>> Yep. So, I'm not much of an expert on um
12:06
the good old days of the cost of crime,
12:07
but I'm definitely up to date on the
12:09
modern times. Um, and there's a lot
12:11
going on and a lot has changed since the
12:14
last known gang was here, which is
12:16
everyone knows the the Kinahanss. Um, a
12:19
lot has changed since then. So, we'll be
12:20
talking about that.
12:22
>> That's going to be really interesting.
12:23
Yeah, I can't wait for that. So, make
12:24
sure you subscribe so that you'll be
12:26
first to hear about the next episode in
12:29
the Mafia special.
12:31
>> Thanks, guys.
12:32
>> Guys, thank you. Don't forget to
12:34
subscribe to the rest of Spain on
12:36
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