About Nick Snelling
Author – Journalist – Realtor
Nick Snelling is a journalist and author of six books, three of which focus on Spain. He lives permanently in Spain with his family and combines his writing career with running Casalasafor Consultancies, a real estate agency specialising in properties around Gandia.
Of his six books, four are non-fiction. These include How to Buy Spanish Property and Move to Spain – Safely! and The Laptop Entrepreneur. He has also written the accompanying text for several books by one of the world’s leading documentary photographers, Jurgen Schadeberg.
Nick’s investigative journalism has explored a wide range of complex and often controversial subjects related to Spain. His work has examined corruption, the economy, divorce and domestic violence, drug culture, the Spanish property crash, immigration, and the country’s culture of brothel use. He has also written an in-depth profile of a high-class call girl.
He has been a columnist for A Place in the Sun magazine and has appeared as an expert contributor on programmes for the BBC (Radio 4 and BBC One), ITV, and Channel 4, including A Place in the Sun.
Nick has also featured on numerous episodes of House Hunters International for US television, discussing Spain and Spanish property. His media work extends to co-presenting a television programme for a Spanish TV channel, providing voice-over narration for documentaries, and working as a fixer for a major television production company.
In addition to his journalistic work, Nick is involved in international humanitarian missions and has worked in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Jordan/Gaza.
Hooked, drugs in Spain and the gateway to hell BY NICK SNELLING In 2006 Spain overtook the United States in having the highest per capita number of cocaine users in the world. In 2007 well over 2 ½ tons of cocaine was seized at Madrid’s Barajas airport alone and it has been estimated that 94% of all Euro notes circulating in Spain have traces of the drug. In 2005 Spain accounted for half of all the seizures of cannabis resin in Europe and three quarters of the total amount seized. Clearly, Spain is at the forefront of the European war against drugs. Unfortunately, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCCDA), Spain has become the gateway…
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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…
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Clubbing Together, Brothels in Spain and Spanish Culture BY NICK SNELLING In 2003, Spain’s Institute of National Statistics (INE) showed that just over one in four Spanish men under the age of 49 had experienced sex with a prostitute – with one in fifteen having done so within the previous year. This was backed up by Maribel Montano of the ruling PSOE party who claimed in 2007 that: ‘every day 1.5 million men pay for sex’ in Spain. In fact, there are an estimated 300,000 prostitutes working in Spain possibly turning over around 40 billion Euros per year, which roughly equates to the country’s education budget. For good reason, Spain is sometimes dubbed the ‘Brothel of Europe’. Certainly, the openness…
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AWAITING THE TEMPEST (Spain from dictatorship to democracy) Part 5 The aftermath… On the 20th November 1975 General Franco died in La Paz hospital, Madrid. He was 82 and had long outlived Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, his contemporary dictators. He had also managed to die in bed surrounded by physicians, after a long life, something that he had so cruelly denied many Spaniards during his 36 years of power. Right to the end of his life, Franco remained in charge. However, to some extent, his power had been diminished by the death of the one man who may have ensured the continuance of his regime. This was Admiral Carrero Blanco, a hard line Francoist and member of the Opus Dei,…
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