Police Name Most-Wanted British Fugitives in Spain

Spain on Thursday published a list of the 13 most-wanted British fugitives thought to be on the run there, including drug dealers and a 78-year-old convicted pedophile.

Police also announced the latest arrests in a crackdown on British suspects in the so-called Costa del Crime in southern Spain: one accused of pedophilia and another of drug-trafficking.

Long seen as a place where British criminals could blend in among their many resident compatriots, the sunspots of southern and eastern Spain have seen a string of major arrests in recent years.

"Spain is not a safe refuge for British delinquents intending to escape justice," said Spanish junior security minister Francisco Martinez in a statement, announcing the most-wanted list.

It included 10 convicted or suspected drug dealers and traffickers, including Ian Stanton, 42, from Liverpool, accused of smuggling 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of cocaine into Britain in a shipment of frozen meat.

The list also included one man suspected of attempted murder, one accused of fraud and a convicted pedophile: Michael McCartney, 78, from Hertfordshire.

Spanish police said separately on Thursday that they had arrested two Britons in the town of Estepona, near Marbella on the southern Costa del Sol, under European arrest warrants.

One of these, Donald Cassidy, 78, is accused of sex crimes against children in the northwestern county of Cheshire in the 1970s and 1980s.

The other, Thomas Willett, a 43-year-old drug dealer from the English city of Nottingham, was among Britain's most-wanted fugitives, a police statement said.

The Spanish government said 53 British suspects had been arrested as part of Operation Capture, a joint campaign launched by the two countries in 2006.

In May police arrested one of Britain's most wanted fugitives, convicted armed robber Andrew Moran, as he relaxed by the swimming pool at a luxury villa in the town of Calpe on the eastern Spanish coast.

In July they nabbed a notorious British drug dealer, Brian Charrington, seizing 220 kilos of cocaine in an apartment in L'Albir, near the eastern resort city of Benidorm.

"For years, Spain has been an appealing hideaway for British criminals evading capture," said Crimestoppers, the British charity that helped compile the list.

"This changed in 2004 with European Arrest Warrants, making it easier to bring British criminals back to face justice."