Costa del sol crime: police arrest dangerous fugitive in large-scale operation

The Guardia Civil arrested a dangerous fugitive wanted by the French authorities in Torremolinos on Sunday morning.

The residents of the town woke up to a large-scale police deployment on 15 March. After months of work, land police patrols and helicopters joined efforts to find the fugitive, who they had located in the Costa del Sol.

The suspect is of French nationality and North African origin. The French justice system has been trying to locate and detain him for a while, considering him to be a dangerous criminal.

This operation joins a series of successful arrest stories that various units of the Spanish police have achieved.

At the end of last year, the National Police in Malaga city arrested a 51-year-old Italian citizen on suspcion of sexual assault on a minor. The Italian authorities had issued a European arrest warrant for him.

Around the same time, the National Police also arrested a 47-year-old Montenegrin fugitive in Fuengirola. He had an international arrest warrant for murder. The search was difficult, because he was reportedly using 17 different identities to evade the police.