Port city may have been the last resort for criminals
The port city, with a population of 300,000, sandwiched between the mountains and the sea, swells in the summer as millions use it as a gateway to holiday destinations on the coast.
Travel guides urge visitors to browse through the covered market stalls by day and enjoy the Alicantino wine and the tapas at night.
But its popularity has brought with it a price the city and hinterland now has one of the highest crime rates in Spain. It soared last year. It doesn't need the likes of Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg, two of many Irish criminals who have fled to the sunshine of Alicante, Andalucia and the Costa Del Sol to the south.
Gardaí are still checking rumours that Coates, leader of the Westies crime gang in Blanchardstown, west Dublin, and his sidekick, Sugg, have been kidnapped, and possibly murdered, near Alicante.
Neither of the men's families have contacted gardaí yet, despite reports that members of the Coates family have been to Alicante.
Some relatives of the two families yesterday said the first they heard about it was in the newspapers.
Police in Alicante and nearby Benidorm have told local media they do not know anything about the alleged incident.
One senior garda yesterday said: "This fella out in Alicante said that Coates and Sugg were trying to settle a drugs debt with another gang and that they were bundled into a car."
But he added: "There is no hard evidence. The report is unconfirmed and unsubstantiated."
It's understood that Coates and Suggs were living with or near to a family from Blanchardstown who own a villa in the Alicante area. It's claimed that one or more of these friends saw the Westies being bundled into a car and driven off.
It is reported that the Westies were trying to settle a debt with a gang over a drugs deal.
A garda in Blanchardstown said while something may have happened they don't know exactly what.
"We have an unconfirmed report. We have nothing to back it up one way or the other. It appears something of some substance took place, but what exactly we don't know."
The pair are thought to have fled to Spain after a shoot-out with gardaí at a house in County Cavan. They are believed to have gone to the North and then made their way to Spain.
They have plenty of Irish company in Alicante and other parts of southern Spain, most of them law-abiding, second-home owners. But the area is also home to some high-profile Irish criminals, attracted not so much by the weather, but by the chance to become involved in large-scale drug-dealing and the opportunity to hide their loot from the Criminal Assets. Millions have been ploughed into apartments, restaurants and bars.
The Irish in Spain can swap stories with an international criminal brigade from, among other places, Russia, Colombia and north Africa. There are also an estimated 200 British criminals there.
Liam Judge, an underworld fixer who died in his Spanish villa in Spain in December, lived in Alicante with the daughter of John Gilligan.
Andalucia, less well known than the neighbouring Costa Del Sol, is also growing in popularity. Resorts in Almeira are favoured by Irish criminals such as John Traynor, who fled Ireland after the murder of Veronica Guerin and hotly denies claims he set her up.
John Cunningham, who kidnapped Jennifer Guinness in 1986 and walked out of Shelton Abbey prison in County Wicklow in 1996, is said to have invested up to 5 million in a villa, apartments and hotel on the Costa Del Sol.
Seamus Ward, from Walkinstown in Dublin, who has lived abroad since 1996, is also believed to be on the Costa Del Sol. He was named in court some years ago as a member of a gang importing large amounts of cannabis in to Ireland. That gang is believed to have been led by 37-year-old Peter Mitchell. Now based in Fuengirola, Spain, Mitchell is still wanted for questioning by the gardaí.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
