Marbella, the Godfather, a face lift and Mr Clean
BY NICK SNELLING
For property owners in Marbella the corruption and malfeasance of Marbella Town hall has been a nightmare of truly appalling proportions with an emotional cost difficult to calculate. Some 600-700 properties risk being demolished whilst around 18,000 others are blighted by illegality. Amazingly, one of the potentially richest towns in Spain is virtually bankrupt and has an infrastructure on the point of collapse. The scandal of Marbella is a story that verges on the incredible.
To some extent, it all began with the property crash of 1989. Marbella was already notorious as a place where the jet-set rubbed shoulders with criminals and shady businessman. For twenty years its glorious climate had attracted the wealthy, beautiful and dubious from around the world, creating an air of glamour that was a draw to tens of thousands of retiring and holidaying north Europeans. However, the property crash of 1989 left Marbella rudderless and the local people discontented with the controlling PSOE political party.
Into the breach walked a larger than life multi-millionaire property developer and football aficionado, Jesus Gil y Gil, who was elected Mayor in 1991. His over-whelming electoral majority was obtained, amazingly, on the back of promises to clean up existing corruption and to provide cheap housing. Importantly, he also claimed he would promote Marbella internationally and re-stimulate the property market.
Forceful, loud mouthed and autocratic, Gil y Gil was nothing if not dynamic and quickly set to work re-vitalising Marbella just as the property market started to boom. Ignoring the restrictive and regionally authorised 1986 Town Plan, he allowed licences for buildings virtually irrespective of a given plot’s legal categorisation. Despite numerous complaints from the central planning authority in Sevilla, individual properties and huge urbanisations were erected on protected land or green zones. Furthermore, infrastructure requirements were ignored amidst an explosion of rampant and unregulated construction as the property boom accelerated through the 1990’s.
Gil y Gil’s right-hand man, deputy mayor and heir apparent was Julian Munoz. Nationally famous as the boyfriend of Isabel Pantoja, one of the most glamorous folk singers in Spain, he was briefly Mayor of Marbella upon Gil y Gil’s death. Subsequently, he was charged with the authorisation of payments for projects that never occurred and the bribery involved in providing licences to developers for building projects. Incredibly, Isabel Pantoja denied knowing about his actions despite handling large amounts of cash herself.
However, behind the scenes lay the ‘puppet master’ with his hands on all the strings. Juan Antonio Roca had come to Marbella as an unemployed builder before becoming chief of urban planning in the 1990’s under Gil y Gil. It was here that he took corruption in Spain to a state of the art.Within fifteen years he had amassed a massive fortune that included, amongst other things, several hotels and fincas, a ranch with thoroughbred horses and fighting bulls, a private jet, vintage cars and an art collection that included Miro paintings. It has been alleged that Roca controlled some 120 companies, had nine mobile telephones and had authorised licences on an estimated 600 real estate deals worth billions of Euros. His wealth, so he claimed publicly, came from having won the lottery a somewhat unlikely eighty times during his lifetime.
After Gil y Gil’s death and until his arrest last year, Roca was so powerful that it was said no major deal within Marbella went ahead without his approval. Indeed, he is believed to have stated, with some accuracy: ‘I am the town hall’. Certainly, it appears his power was sufficient to ensure that Julian Munoz’s term of office as Mayor was cut short with Munoz’s subsequent replacement by the more pliable Marisol Yague. The latter, a somewhat arrogant and vain woman, now stands accused, amongst other things, of accepting 1.3 million euros in bribes, a free face lift and a flat for her son in Madrid.
The endemic corruption surrounding Marbella town council started to unravel in 2005 when a young and incorruptible judge, Miguel Angel Torres, was placed in charge of investigating money laundering in Malaga. This massive problem was found to be inextricably linked to property development and led the judge inevitably to Marbella, the town hall and a mire of housing fraud, licence abuses, bribery and corruption.
Operation Malaya was swiftly mounted in 2006 and within three months Judge Torres was coolly reeling in the major ‘players’. Twenty three people were arrested including Antonio Roca, Mayor Marisol Yague and her deputy, Isabel Garcia Maria, who had ironically previously been known as an anti-corruption campaigner. Astonishingly, the police announced that they had seized an astounding 2,400 million euros worth of cash and assets. This haul included 830,000 Euros in cash, 275 works of art, 103 horses, 14 cars, 24 historical weapons, five kilos of jewellery and a helicopter. Within days, Marbella council had been dissolved by the Spanish national government, the first time such an action had occurred since Spain became a democracy under the 1976 constitution.
The full extent and implications of the corruption in Marbella are still coming to light. In July 2007 Judge Torres announced that he was charging eighty six people in connection with fraud and corruption in Marbella. Of these, two are former mayors and twenty were past councilors. The remainder rank amongst the elite of Marbella and range from lawyers and businessman through to developers and politicians.
As for Marbella itself, incredibly, not a single school or health centre has been built in fifteen years and a ‘floating’ permanent population estimated to have ballooned to around 160,000 people is surviving on an infrastructure that has changed little since 1991. To make matters worse, under Mayor Gil y Gil, Marbella neither paid social security contributions nor tax for its workforce which expanded from 400 in 1991 to 3,200 in 2006.
It is estimated that Marbella is now saddled with accumulated debts of around 200 million euros hampering any possible rectification of the town’s traumatized infrastructure. This, of course, is the final insult to those worrying themselves sick about the legality of their homes and terrified that theirs might be one of the properties scheduled for demolition.
Perhaps the biggest scandal is that endemic corruption within Marbella had been widely known for years by those living and working on the Costa del Sol. How was it, therefore, that it took so long for anything to be done? This begs the question of high level institutional collusion with the distinct possibility that this particular story and the problem with corruption in Spain is very far from over.
TIME LINE
– CORRUPTION IN SPAIN –
1954 Alfonso of Hohenlohe opens Hotel Marbella Club and starts to construct a holiday ‘village’ for the wealthy
1974 Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia visits and provides stamp of approval for Marbella as a resort for the very wealthy
1980s The jet set arrive – Sean Connery, Julio Iglesias etc.
1989 Real estate crash
1991 Jesus Gil y Gill is elected Mayor with a huge majority and starts to re-vitalise Marbella.
1995 Property boom starts
2002 Jesus Gill y Gil resigns, is jailed and banned from public office for 28 years. Julian Munoz becomes Mayor
2003 Marisol Yagüe becomes Mayor after Munoz is out-manoeuvred by Roca
2005 Judge Torres directs Operation White Whale (an investigation into money laundering). He finds links with property development and local government corruption
2006 Operation Malaya launched under Judge Torres to investigate housing development fraud and local government corruption
March Mayor Marisol Yague, deputy mayor Isabel Garcia Marcos and Juan Antonio Roca arrested.
Police confirm seizing 2,400 million euros of cash and assets
April Marbella council dissolved and caretaker committee appointed to run council until May 2007 elections.
July Ex-mayor Julian Munoz arrested
2007
May Maria de los Ángeles Muñoz elected Mayor of Marbella at the local elections.
July Judge Torres charges 86 people relating to Marbella corruption
PERSONALITIES
Jesus Gil y Gil ‘The Godfather’
Mayor of Marbella 1991 – 2002
Owner of Athletico Madrid football club
Convicted of embezzlement 2002
Died 2004
Juan Antonio Roca Nicolas 54, ‘The Puppet Master’
Marbella City Planner.
From dole to one of the richest people in Andalusia.
Arrested 2006
Marisol Yague ‘The Puppet’
Mayor of Marbella 2002 – 2006
Apparently received a ‘face lift and 1.3 million Euros in bribes
Arrested 2006
Isabel Garcia Marcos ‘The Super Hypocrite’
Deputy Mayor of Marbella
378,000 E in cash found in her safe
Arrested 2006
Julian Munoz ‘The Lieutenant’
Gil y Gil’s right hand man and boy friend of Spanish star Isabel Pantoja
Mayor of Marbella 2002 – 2003
Arrested 2006
Judge Miguel Angel Torres (Mr Clean’)
36 year old examining judge
Retiring, charming and thorough.
Head of Operation Malaga
Promoted to the criminal court in Granada
BY NICK SNELLING
(Noms de plume: Alexander Peters, Elena Suarez, Alberto Diaz)