Spain's public debt soars to record high

Spain's public debt soared to a record high at the end of 2011, Bank of Spain figures showed Friday, as Madrid struggled to slash costs and escape the eurozone debt crisis. Public debt amounted to 734.96 billion euros ($960 billion), equal to 68.5 percent of annual economic output at the end of 2011 -- up from 66 percent three months earlier and 61.2 percent at the end of 2010. The accumulated debts breached the European-Union agreed limit of 60 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) but was still below the eurozone average, which approached 90 percent in the third quarter last year. It was the highest public debt ratio recorded in Spain since statistics in the current format were first published in 1995. Spain's public debt is rising fast because of runaway annual public deficits that have shot past EU-agreed targets, in part owing to high spending by regional governments. The previous Socialist government, ousted by the conservative Popular Party in November elections, had forecast a debt of 67.2 of GDP for the end of 2011, aiming to curb it to less than 70 percent in 2014. But the European statistics unit Eurostat was not so optimistic. It forecast a public debt of 69.6 percent in 2011, 73.8 percent in 2012 and 78 percent in 2013. Spain's conservative government, which took power in December, has yet to announce a new public debt target. The public debt ratio has grown without interruption since the first quarter of 2008 when, after nearly a decade of fast growth and budget surpluses, which trimmed the debt, it amounted to 35.8 percent of GDP. The situation in the 17 regions is particularly worrying: at the end of 2011 their accumulated debt rose to 140.1 billion euros, or a record 13.1 percent of national GDP, from 11.4 percent a year earlier. Municipal debts, however, eased over the year to 35.4 billion euros or 3.3 percent of GDP. Regional governments enjoy a high level of autonomy, prompting concerns in financial markets that their spending could compromise the central government's deficit-cutting goals. Spain had agreed to cut its annual public deficit to 6.0 percent of GDP in 2011 but it overran that target by a wide margin and ended up reporting a deficit of 8.51 percent of GDP. After winning a slight relaxation from Brussels in its goals for this year, Spain is now aiming for an annual deficit of 5.3 percent in 2012 and 3.0 percent in 2013. But the regions are not entirely to blame. The central government's finances also deteriorated in 2011, as its public debt rose to 52.1 percent of GDP at the end of the year from 46.4 percent a year earlier.

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Two hours waiting for Ryanair take off with no air conditioning

 

Travellers on Thursday’s 12.35 Ryanair flight from Málaga to Barcelona have been complaining about the treatment they received. Diario Sur reports that many passengers have complained after they had to stay on board the plane for nearly two hours on the runway at Málaga because of a breakdown. They were not allowed to leave the plane despite the fact that the air conditioning was not working. Announcements only in English upset many Spaniards who could not understand. After the safety demonstrations were carried out as usual the plane started to taxi, but then stopped. Doors opened and technicians arrived. The passengers asked for water, only to be told the bar was closed, but later they were able to purchase small individual bottles for 3 € each although that is reported to have made some of the passengers more nervous and angry. One traveller said that everything was very confused with children and some pensioners having a particularly bad time. At one point they were told they would be put on another plane. Finally the children and pensioners swapped seats to be at the front of the plane where the doors were open so that they got some air. Many asked to go down the steps but this was not allowed. At 2-15 the plane finally took off. A Ryanair spokesman, when asked about the incident, replied that the company operates 1,500 flights a day and does not give information on punctual cases.

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Cadíz second bridge delayed until at least 2013

The Ministry for Development has announced a delay in the opening of the second road bridge into Cádiz which will now not be open to traffic until 2013. Minister, Ana Pastor, said that not with all the money in the world could a 2012 opening be achieved. 2012 was the target date so that it coincided with the bicentenary of the 1812 Spanish Constitution which was signed in the city on March 19 1812. The General Courts of Spain were transferred there while in refuge from the Peninsular War. The Minister added, ‘It will take at least another 15 months, and that only if there is no wind’. The Ministry of Development says the suspension bridge is now 75% complete, but a fundamental part of the project, linking to the 13 pivot bases which are already showing in the middle of the Cádiz Bay is still to be done. The bridge is the largest road infrastructure project in Spain and has a cost of about 300 million € and will link Cádiz with Puerto Real. It will be known as the Puente de la Constitución de 1812, and not the ‘Puente de la Pepa’ which was the name given by the previous Minister, Magdalena Álvarez.

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Place your bets on Euro Vegas

IT MAY just be the single largest contrarian bet in the euro zone. Sheldon Adelson, a casino tycoon, is expected soon to choose between Madrid and Barcelona for a €16 billion ($21 billion) gambling resort. The euro-zone turmoil does not faze him: “It will take us four to five years,” he told Forbes magazine. “By then everything will be solved.” Mr Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands (LVS) hopes to create a “Euro Vegas”, capable of attracting the 1 billion people who live in the 50 countries within a five-hour flight from Spain. He chose the country because of the weather and because its unemployment rate, now at 23%, “assures us the support of the government”. The numbers are certainly eye-popping. LVS would invest €6 billion in a first phase to build four hotel strips—eventually reaching 12—as well as casinos, shops, restaurants, golf courses and convention centres. LVS says the project could create 260,000 indirect and direct jobs, enough for nearly half the unemployed in Madrid. Spain is already the fourth-largest holiday destination in the world, but LVS reckons Euro Vegas would attract 11m new tourists on top of the 57m a year Spain already gets, increasing tourism spending by €15.5 billion over the next ten to 15 years. In this section News of the world Good for you, not for shareholders Zimplats happens Watch this space »Place your bets on Euro Vegas Luxury on the cheap Nazis in space The view from Liverpool Reprints Related topics Gambling Barcelona Madrid Spain Madrid and Barcelona, used to battling it out on the football pitch, have won a promise of neutrality from the central government. Barcelona admits that Madrid has the edge so far, since it has been talking to Mr Adelson on and off since 2007. But Barcelona has not given up. Mr Adelson recently visited a beach-front site near the city’s El Prat airport, which like Madrid’s Barajas has plenty of spare capacity. National and local leaders are keen on the project but opponents are sceptical of LVS’s claims about job creation, and worry that the casino will become a “fiscal and legal paradise” of tax breaks and exemptions from labour laws—a charge which regional officials deny. However, LVS is thought to be seeking a relaxation of Spain’s ban on smoking in public places, and lower gambling levies. Whichever city won would also have to bear the cost of such things as transport links to the resort. Given Spain’s precarious public finances, and considering that, as Mr Adelson puts it, there are “tens of billions to be made” from the resort, the authorities ought to resist any temptation to splash out taxpayers’ money to win the deal. They will have to assuage public fears of encouraging gambling addiction, infiltration by organised crime and the environmental impact of such a giant construction project. As in Singapore, where LVS recently opened a big casino resort, Spanish officials play down gambling as a small part of the overall package. Another worry is that the project will not happen at all. Spain has had its share of unrealised property developments. A €17 billion casino complex in the desert of Aragon, proposed in 2007, remains unbuilt. But LVS has withstood the global downturn pretty well, and the success of its Macao and Singapore operations gives it plenty of financial firepower. LVS boasts that its Marina Bay Sands development has “moved the needle” in Singapore, with record tourism figures one year after its opening. Euro Vegas would be much larger. A casino resort may lack the prestige of, say, a technology cluster, but Spain will have to take a few gambles to get its soaring unemployment under control.

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55 security guards arrested with fake qualifications

 

55 false security guards working in sensitive positions have been arrested in Madrid, Toledo, Cuenca and Badajoz. The National Police arrested the 55 who have all be established to have been working fraudulently, and some with jobs looking after explosives or acting as bodyguards. A statement from the National Police said those arrested lacked the necessary preparation for the work and were employed because of falsified qualifications. Some of them have a previous criminal record.

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The Spanish Government is to increase the tax on diesel vehicles

 

The Spanish Government has revealed that it wants to increase the tax on diesel vehicles because they ‘contaminate more’. The change will be a modification on the vehicle matriculation tax. The Secretary of State for the Environment, Federico Ramos, gave the news after meeting with the environment experts and said that in principle the regional administrations are in agreement. The local City and Town Halls say they now want to first analyse the financial consequences for them. Diesel vehicles not only pollute with CO2 but also emit Nitrogen Dioxide, and particles in suspension.

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The ex Mayor of Alcaucín in Málaga, José Manuel Martin Alba, who was arrested for a second time with seven other people

The ex Mayor of Alcaucín in Málaga, José Manuel Martin Alba, who was arrested for a second time with seven other people on Tuesday in the ‘Tristan case’, which comes from the ‘Arcos operation’, made a statement on Wednesday to the investigators of the UCO central operations unit of the Guardia Civil. La Opinión de Málaga reports that he denied knowing the land registry civil servants that he allegedly manipulated with false data to obtain the classification of building land. These plots were often purchased by foreign investors with the idea of building on them. However, the Guardia Civil has said that the land was not buildable and therefore a crime of fraud had taken place, and this part of the investigation is still under reporting restrictions. The declarations continue from the arrested civil servants from the land registry, some in payments, others in Hacienda, as well as three management auxiliaries. The Guardia Civil says that the civil servants, ‘coordinated by a lawyer, modified the data base of the land registry with the end of introducing the false information to give legal coverage to the construction of homes on non-buildable land. The Guardia Civil contends that in exchange they received illegal commissions. Rafael Yus from the Nature Studies Group GENA said that he was not surprised by the ex-Mayor’s new arrest. He said the modification to the land registry was ‘part of what they do here’ and claimed it was ‘a corruption which extends to other municipalities, but which it difficult to demonstrate’.

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Families in Spain face eviction over stranger loans

 

Fighting eviction for failing to pay the mortgage on his home in Spain's capital, Nelson Castillo is now grappling not only with his own debts but also those of a family he does not know. The 39-year-old and his wife acted as guarantors of another Ecuadoran family's loan under a programme run by an agency that negotiated loans for immigrants. In return, that family acted as the guarantor for Castillo's loan. Now, both families are in arrears. And each of them is legally responsible for its own loan and for the loan it guaranteed. "We were two families and we did not know each other. Ecuadorans are like that. We had to sign the papers and that's it. Goodbye, and each side went its own way," said Castillo. Dozens of anti-eviction activists had gathered outside his Madrid apartment building on Tuesday to prevent court clerks and bank officials from ejecting Castillo and his family from their home. Inside the apartment a volunteer psychologist tried to comfort Castillo's wife, 40-year-old Kelly Herrera, who sat in distress on the couch while the couple talked to police. The couple were given until March 30 to pay their debt of 222,000 euros ($291,000) claimed by the bank. And they are still liable for the loan given to the other family. "Today they are demanding my loan. But later on they will demand the second," said Castillo. The couple's lawyer Rafael Mayoral had requested that the eviction be blocked for "humanitarian reasons" because their two children are minors and a knee injury prevents Herrera from working at the moment. But above all the lawyer argued that the couple are "victims of a swindle". The couple and nine other families are suing an agency, Central Hipotecaria del Inmigrante, which ran a system of "cross guarantors" for loans among people that did not always know each other. "It was a pyramid scheme of financial risk management," said Mayoral. Despite the investigation under way into the agency, the courts have refused to issue a moratorium on evictions. Last week the government approved a voluntary "code of conduct" for banks that aims to help poor homeowners settle their debts and reduce a wave of evictions brought on by Spain's economic crisis. For families whose members are all out of work and have no other source of income, the code obliges signatory banks to restructure their mortgage debt by for example lengthening the term of the loan or reducing its interest rate. The goal is to reduce the number of evictions in Spain, which amount to about 300,000 since the collapse of a property bubble in 2008. But the new code will not help Castillo and his family. "The bank did not give me any option, I wanted to give them the apartment in exchange for clearing my debt but they were not interested," he said. Castillo, a waiter, said with pride that he "only spent a few months out of work" since he moved to Spain in 1996. In 2006 he and his wife decided to buy an apartment while Spain was still in the midst of a property boom. The couple took out a mortgage with a variable rate that started out with a monthly payment of 900 euros. But as Euribor interest rates rose, their monthly mortgage payment shot up to 1,420 euros. "It became impossible to pay. I earned 1,000 euros a month and my wife also did not earn much. Things became complicated. I tried to reach an agreement with the bank but it was not possible. I stopped paying," said Castillo. Castillo said he did not know if the family which signed as the guarantor of his loan has suffered any consequences because he stopped making his mortgage payments. "I only met them the day we signed the papers," he said.

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Spanish House Prices Tumble

 

Spanish house prices tumbled at their fastest pace on record in the fourth quarter, a sign that a long-running property bust will continue to weigh on Spanish households and banks. House prices fall over 11.2% in the fourth-quarter of 2011-the fastest contraction on record. WSJ's Sara Schaefer Munoz has been looking at the data and analyzes how this affects its efforts to deal with its debt crisis. House prices fell on average by 11.2% in the fourth quarter from the same period a year earlier, well below the 7.4% decline in the third quarter, while prices of used homes was down 13.7% in the period, the country's statistics agency INE said Thursday. Both readings are by far the worst since INE started recording countrywide prices in 2007, the peak year for Spain's decade-long property boom. Previously, annual price declines had bottomed out at 7.7% in 2009, and analysts say house prices have only rarely fallen year-to-year since at least the 1970s. The drop indicates Spanish property prices are now correcting at a similar pace to that seen in the U.S. soon after the 2008 financial crisis, and may fall further at least this year. In previous quarters, price drops were somewhat contained, the result of support efforts by the government and banks, fearful of the effect of a housing collapse. Spanish banks hold more than €400 billion ($521.32 billion) worth of loans to the construction and real-estate sector, backed by collateral that loses value as property prices slide further. The amount is equivalent to around 40% of Spain's gross domestic product. TK Raj Badiani, an economist at IHS Global Insight, said government data indicates Spanish house prices are down more than 20% from the 2007-2008 peak, even though other evidence points to a possible drop of more than 30%. "The continued imbalance between the supply and demand of housing suggests that house prices will continue to fall throughout 2012," Mr. Badiani said. "The outlook remains bleak, with the demand for housing expected to shrink throughout 2012 with debt-laden households struggling to cope with a devastated labor market and limited access to credit." Last month, Spain's Finance Minister Luis de Guindos presented a clean-up plan that will force banks to set aside an additional €50 billion this year to cover losses from souring loans, mostly property-related. The plan also seeks to allow a faster correction of the property market this year, so that lower prices trigger some demand in the moribund sector. Earlier this week, INE data showed Spain's property sales continued their recent slide in January, with a 26% annual decline. Last year, just over 361,000 homes were sold in Spain, less than half the number sold in 2007. The clean-up plan and other reforms may only have a delayed effect on the euro zone's fourth-largest economy, the Ernst & Young consultancy said in a report. A lack of demand amid an economic contraction that may stretch until 2014 should keep house prices falling for the next three years, Ernst & Young added. Meanwhile, Spain's bond auction was a mixed bag Thursday, with the Treasury selling slightly less than the maximum targeted amount but paying mostly lower yields to investors. The infusion of cheap cash from the European Central Bank has buttressed bond markets across the 17-nation euro zone, but not always equally. Spain's government bond market hasn't kept pace, while Italy, which at the end of last year had been lumped together with Spain as possibly becoming the "next domino," has swapped places with Spain as the country having to pay less of a premium on its debt. The contrasting fortunes also reflects the market's confidence in Italy's ability to make progress on the fiscal front while Spain falters. Italy's economy is likely to record a primary surplus in 2012. Spain unilaterally revised its budget deficit targets and analysts are skeptical if even those targets will be met.

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Escaped prisoner Anthony Downes arrested and held in Amsterdam

 

Anthony Downes, who was arrested in Amsterdam, escaped from a prison van while being transported from HMP Manchester to Liverpool Crown Court in July last year. He had been facing trial for conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life and conspiracy to cause damage with intent to endanger life. He was convicted in his absence at Woolwich Crown Court and is due to be sentenced at the end of this week. Downes, 26, featured as part of Crimestoppers’ latest Operation Captura Campaign in October 2011, which seeks to locate wanted fugitives believed to have fled to Spain, who are wanted by UK law enforcement agencies. Lord Ashcroft, KCMG, Founder and Chair of Crimestoppers, said: “This is yet another example of how criminals on the run will eventually be caught and I am delighted to hear that this individual has been arrested. “Crimestoppers is seeing huge success with its fugitive campaigns and the fact that we now have 48 arrests out of 65 appeals from our Captura campaign proves that wanted criminals will eventually be brought to justice.” Deputy Chief Executive, Dave Cording, added: “This arrest comes less than six months after the fifth anniversary of Operation Captura. “Through close collaboration with the Spanish police, SOCA and the public, these individuals have nowhere to hide and those still on the run should think about handing themselves in before they are caught next.” This latest arrest brings the total number of those located to 48 out of 65 appeals since the campaign launched in October 2006. Operation Captura is the successful multi-agency campaign which identifies serious criminals believed to be on the run in Spain.

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Expats in Spain warned of faulty hip replacements

Therapist Carol Duquemin, 59, decided to act after being forced to have her hip replacement removed after just four months. Duquemin – whose ordeal came after the manufacturer recalled the faulty product in 2010 – has teamed up with free health care service Medilink to provide advice and support to expats. “Up to 9,000 people in Spain could have been affected by the implants,” Duquemin said. “People are still not aware of the problem and the danger it poses to their health. “The law says you have to have it removed in the country where you had the operation but some hospitals here are not giving the help and information that they should, and it is a big operation that causes a huge trauma to the body.

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Dutch activist arrested in Morocco

 

A young Dutch-Moroccan activist was arrested in Morocco on Monday. The Dutch Foreign Ministry has confirmed the detention of Yuba Zalen to Radio Netherlands Worldwide. Mr Zalen is a member of the 20th of February movement, a young protest group inspired by the Arab Spring and calling for greater democracy in Morocco. He was in Morocco to report on the unrest in the northern town of Ait Bouayach, where dozens have been injured in clashes with security forces. Moroccan media are barely reporting on the unrest. Activists say that local internet cafés have also been closed down. The website Amazightimes.com reports that Yuba Zalen is likely to appear in court in the town of Al-Hoceima on Thursday. The Dutch section of the 20th of February movement has called for his immediate release.

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Revolt in the city of Bni Bouayach in the mountainous area of the Northern Rif in Morocco

The city of Bni Bouayach in the mountainous area of the Northern Rif in Morocco has been sealed off since Wednesday, March 8. All the repressive organs of the state, the army, the gendarmerie together with the secret and public police, have joined forces to blockade the small city. The inhabitants live in fear of police terror and the raiding of houses and arrests. Other repressive forces are hunting down activists who fled into the neighbouring mountains to escape arrest. The media black-out is total. This violent intervention is the dictatorship’s response to peaceful demonstrations organised by the young unemployed and the activists of the 20F movement that have been ongoing for many months. The protest is against the generalised lack of jobs and bad social and economic conditions in this marginalised city of the Rif. The regime has used a variety of tactics against the protest movement, from “containment” to targeted repression of the leaders of the action. One activist, Kamal al-Hassani, was killed on October 27th last year, another, Bachir ben Shu'ayb, was abducted and put on trial. His imprisonment and the accusations against him have provoked new protests in the city. National highway Number 2 was blocked and a sit-in was organised in front of the municipal buildings and the National Electricity Company. On March 5 the youth wanted to organise a march (25 km) to the city of Al Hoceima in support of the arrested comrade but the police stopped them. Then on Thursday, March 8, the forces of repression attacked the demonstrators during a sit-in. The police used truncheons, teargas and water cannons to disperse the demonstrators. The masses of this city, known for their fighting traditions and activism, have defended themselves by throwing stones (see this report). Demonstrations have been organised in the main streets leading to clashes in different neighbourhoods. Many people have been injured in those clashes. Fearing arrest, most of them have avoided being treated in the hospitals. Dozens of demonstrators have also been detained. The attack of the repressive forces was ferocious. No-one was spared, not even the women and the children. In seeking out demonstrators, the police entered people’s homes and destroyed the contents or plundered them. They are even hunting down the young activists in the mountains all around the area. Friday the police arrested a group of activists, including Wael Faqih a leader of the unemployed youth association (Association Nationale des Diplômés Chômeurs au Maroc), and Mohammed Jalloul, a teacher in a primary school and also an activist of the 20F movement. This attack against the city of Bni Bouayach is taking place against a background of growing revolt in some cities (such as Taza and Khénifra) that are completely marginalised by the state. These protests are organised by the 20F movement. They reflect the absolute bankruptcy of the system and the lack of alternative. It also shows the real nature of the dictatorship which is not ready to reform itself out of existence.

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Moroccan appeal court confirmed a death sentence

A Moroccan appeal court confirmed a death sentence Friday against the mastermind of the April 2011 Marrakesh bombing that killed 17 people, and handed a death sentence to one of the others convicted. The chief judge of the court confirmed the death sentence against Adil Al-Atmani, the mastermind of the bombings, in which 17 people -- Moroccans, French and Swiss nationals -- were killed and dozens more wounded. And it converted the life term handed down to his chief accomplice Hakim Dah to a death sentence. But the death sentences are unlikely to be carried, with capital punishment in the process of being taken off the statutes. The court also increased the jail sentences against six of the other men convicted at the original trial in October from six to 10 years and confirmed a two-year sentence against a ninth man. The appeal trial went ahead after the prosecutors appealed the original sentences. The appeal court sentences were in some respects harsher than what the prosecution had asked for. The prosecutor on Wednesday had only asked for the life sentence against Dah to be confirmed. But he had wanted harsher sentences against the seven other people convicted. The defendants denied many of the charges against them during the trial. The Marrakesh bombing was the deadliest in the north African kingdom since attacks in the coastal city of Casablanca in 2003 which killed 33 people and 12 bombers. The defendants had denied the charges against them during the trial. One of the defendants' lawyers, Khalil Idrissi, criticised the "harsh" sentences, which he said were an "act of complacency" towards the families of the victims and their countries. Another defence lawyer said the "court increased the punishments of several defendants who had nothing to do with this crime". But relatives of the French victims welcomed the tougher sentences. "Now I can grieve," Jacques Maude, who was close to one victim, said. Capital punishment has not been carried out in Morocco since 1992 and is about to be formally wiped off the book, with a new constitution voted through in July explicitly affirming "the right to life". The Marrakesh bombing was the deadliest in the north African kingdom since attacks in the coastal city of Casablanca in 2003 which killed 33 people and 12 bombers.

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Protests Spread in Morocco's North Rif Mountains

Anti-government protests in Morocco's impoverished northern Rif mountains are spreading after a second village clashed with police resulting in serious injuries and 10 arrests, reported the state news agency. For the past 10 days, there have been demonstrations in the small village of Beni Bouayache following the arrest of a local activist. On Sunday they spread to the nearby town of Imzouren. The state news agency said a number of police were injured when they stopped a protest march at Imzouren headed for Beni Bouayache. The report said some injuries were grievous without further details. Chakib al-Khayari, an activist with the Rif Association for Human Rights, said 20 policemen had been injured in Sunday's clashes, but he didn't have figures for the locals wounded. "We don't know the number of wounded because they can't go to the hospital for fear of arrest," he told The Associated Press by telephone. Morocco's Rif mountains, which parallel the Mediterranean coast, are one of the poorest parts of the country and have been historically marginalized with little government investment. On March 2, plainclothes police snatched Bachir Benchaib, a leader of the local chapter of the February 20 pro-democracy movement, as he was leaving the mosque following evening prayers. The state news agency described Benchaib as a violent gang-member implicated in robberies and other criminal activities. In subsequent days, supporters demonstrated for Benchaib's release, blocking the road to the port city of Al Hoceima, 280 miles (450 kilometers) northeast of Rabat, and carrying out sit-ins in front of the police station and government buildings. Starting Wednesday, police began dispersing demonstrations with tear gas and water cannons and carrying out a campaign of arrests. Clashes with security forces generally now take place at night, said al-Khayari, who estimated that some 24 people had been arrested. He predicted that the protests, which have included demands for more electricity and water in their village, would continue. "They want their rights and a better life," al-Khayari. "They have nothing in this region." The Rif mountains were once an independent republic in the 1920s, until the region was reconquered by the French in 1926. After independence from France, the region revolted against the new Moroccan central government in 1958, before the rebellion was crushed. The people are primarily from the Berber ethnicity, North Africa's original inhabitants with their own language, and during demonstrations they waved flags from the Rif Republic as well as the flag of the North Africa-wide flag of the Berber movement.

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Michel Smith, a Quebec member of the Hells Angels wanted se 2009 in connection to 22 murder cases, has been arrested by authorities in Panama

 

Michel Smith, a Quebec member of the Hells Angels wanted se 2009 in connection to 22 murder cases, has been arrested by authorities in Panama, according to media reports. However, officials from the Surete du Quebec and RCMP were not immediately able to confirm or deny the reports. According to the RCMP, Smith is a member of the South Chapter of the Hells Angels and goes by the nickname "L'animal." He has been on the run since 2009 in connection with a police crackdown on the Hells Angels biker gang. He faces 29 criminal charges - including 22 murder charges. Citing Panamanian local media and Agence France-Presse, the QMI news agency reported that Smith, 49, had been detained by police Friday evening in the Playa Coronado region, on the Pacific Ocean coast of the Central American nation. A Canada-wide warrant issued by the RCMP said he was being sought for murder, gangsterism, drug trafficking and related conspiracy charges. His Central American connections were known to authorities. "Smith is likely to visit Panama and speaks French," the warrant stated. Const. Erique Gasse of the RCMP's C Division in Montreal said he had relayed a request for official word on Smith's status to RCMP officials in Ottawa, who did not immediately return a phone call. Asked for confirmation of the arrest report, Surete du Quebec spokesperson Sgt. Christine Coulombe said: "I have no information on this." Smith is "considered to be violent," according to the warrant. Aside from "L'animal," his aliases have included Mike Smith-Lajoie, Michel Lajoie-Smit and Michel Lajoie. The warrant describes Smith as 172 centimetres tall and weighing 95 kilograms, with brown hair and blue eyes.

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Alleged Quebec Hells Angels member arrested in Panama

 

Quebec fugitive -- and alleged member of the Hells Angels -- who is wanted on murder charges has been arrested in Panama, local media reports say. Michel Smith, 49, who was linked to Quebec's deadly biker war in the 1990s, was reportedly arrested Friday. Smith -- whose nickname is "animal" -- has been on the run since 2009. He was taken into custody by local police in the tourist area of Playa Coronado on the Pacific Ocean coast, according to local reports. The reports said he had been under surveillance for about two months before his arrest. Smith faces 29 charges, including 22 counts of murder. Police in Canada had not confirmed the news as late Sunday night. Smith is to be extradited back to Canada, police officials in Panama said in a news release. Smith has long been alleged to be among the top men affiliated with the Hells Angels when it was at war with the Rock Machine biker gang in the 1990s and early 2000s. The gang war killed more than 150 people. While most of the victims were members of the rival gangs and their affiliates, two prison guards and an 11-year old boy -- a bystander -- also died. An RCMP warrant describes Smith as 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing 210 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes.

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