The biggest fines in British maritime history were handed down to a group of Spanish fishermen on Thursday, for illegal fishing in UK waters.

 Photograph: Robert Ghement/EPA

Some of the biggest fines in British maritime history were handed down to a group of Spanish fishermen on Thursday, for illegal fishing in UK waters.

Two companies owned by the Vidal family were fined £1.62m in total in a Truro court, after a two-day hearing, in which details emerged of falsified log books, failing to register the transfer of fish between vessels, false readings given for weighing fish at sea, and fiddling of fishing quotas.

Judge Graham Cottle said the family were guilty of "wholesale falsification of official documentation" that amounted to a "systematic, repeated and cynical abuse of the EU fishing quota system over a period of 18 months".

He said: "[This was a] flagrant, repeated and long term abuse of regulations. The fish targeted [hake] was at that time a species of fish on the verge if collapse and adherence to quotas was seen as crucial to the survival of the species."

The Spanish fishing vessels had been sailing under UK flags and were landing fish based on quotas given to British fishermen under the EU's common fisheries policy. Two vessels were involved, but the companies own several other large vessels, capable of industrial-scale fishing.

The offending fishermen, who admitted their guilt earlier this year, were not in court to hear him, having been given leave to return to Spain last night. The offences, dating from 2009 and 2010, relate to two companies, Hijos De Vidal Bandin SA and Sealskill Limited, both owned by the Vidal family. They were fined £925,000 on a confiscation order, plus £195,000 in costs, and an additional fine of £250,000 levied on each of the two companies. Two skippers who were acting under the family's instructions were fined £5,000 each.

Ariana Densham, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace, who was present for the trial and judgement, said that the fines, while welcome, did not go far enough. "This group of people should never be allowed near UK fishing quota again," she said. "The Vidal's right to fish should be removed completely."

She said the offences showed the vulnerability of the EU's fishing quota system to fraud. "The system that allowed this to happen needs to be fixed," she said. "This case is not a one off. It's a symptom of Europe's farcical fishing rules. The Vidals were permitted to fish under UK flags, using UK quota, and receive huge EU subsidies, with none of the proceeds ever feeding back into the UK economy. The system is skewed in favour of rich, powerful, industrial-scale fishing companies, when really it should be supporting low-impact, sustainable fishermen."

There are currently moves under way in Brussels by the fisheries commissioner, Maria Damanaki, to reform the EU's common fisheries policy. The proposed reforms – which include the ending of the wasteful practice of discarding healthy and edible fish at sea – have met stiff opposition, particularly from the French and Spanish fishing industries. Spain has the biggest fishing fleet in Europe and receives the lion's share of the subsidies available for fishing within the EU. A historic agreement was reached among member states last month on the proposals, but they must now pass the European parliament, which is expected to consider the proposals later this year.

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Last week, Brescia art experts found 100 'new' works by the old master. Their value? €700m. But there's a catch: their rivals in Milan aren't convinced

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To find one previously unknown work by one of art's undisputed geniuses may be considered good fortune. To discover 100 in one go might appear too good to be true. It should be no surprise then that last week's astonishing claims by Italian art sleuths to have found a cache of 96 paintings and sketches by the baroque giant Caravaggio in a workshop in Milan's Sforzesco Castle are facing increasing scrutiny and, in many circles, disbelief.

Art critics have expressed doubts that such a huge amount of work – almost doubling overnight the number of pictures attributed to the celebrated old master – could have gone unnoticed for so long.

And in response, authorities in Milan, no doubt miffed that art academics from the rival regional city of Brescia are claiming the glory for the discovery, are not sitting on their hands. Yesterday they announced two inquiries of their own into the veracity of the researchers' claimed methods and checks, and an independent assessment of the artworks' provenance.

Already the discovery is being tainted by serious claims and counter claims regarding dubious ethics and mysterious sorties at odd hours that could have come straight from the pages of the iconic painter's own colourful life.

The excitement began last Wednesday when a breathless Italian news agency reported the confident claims of art experts from the Brescia Museum Foundation that around 100 early works by Michelangelo Merisi, better known as Caravaggio, had been identified. An eye-watering price was soon put on them: €700m (£550m).

The cache was found, said the researchers, Maurizio Bernardelli Curuz Guerrieri and Adriana Conconi Fedrigolli, at the city's landmark castle in the old workshop of Caravaggio's master, the post-Renaissance painter Simone Peterzano. The researchers said their detailed comparison of the works with known pieces by the painter showed "the faces, bodies and scenes the young Caravaggio would use in later years".

"Caravaggio left the region of Lombardy with a rich collection of figures that he used throughout his career, but especially in his early years working in Rome. These works are proof," said Mr Bernardelli.

As The Independent reported at the time, Elena Conenna, the city council's somewhat-surprised culture spokeswoman, gave a cautious welcome to the "discovery". "We'll be very happy to discover it's true," she said. "But it's strange. They weren't in a hidden place, they were accessible to all." She said the city had not been informed about the discovery and would be "carrying out checks". Many people assumed the Brescia researchers had announced their discovery without warning to increase the impact.

Key to the Brescia pair's claims was numerous visits to the workshop during what they said was a painstaking two-year period of research into the paintings and sketches. Unfortunately, an email dated 11 May last year has now surfaced in which the pair appear to be requesting electronic copies of the works. Neither are there any official records of them having viewed the works in person, according to Francesca Rossi, the official in charge of access to the castle's art and antiquities. She told Corriere della Sera newspaper: "I've never seen them here. They've never had access to the collection, they studied the images exclusively from the computer disc."

Reports yesterday suggest the disc sent from Milan to Brescia contained over 1,700 jpeg images – at low resolution. And in a very Italian twist, authorities in Milan have also announced an internal inquiry to establish if unwarranted collusion and even corruption was involved.

Mr Bernardelli disputed the claims of the Milan officials. "We saw the collection various times, even if these were outside normal hours, accompanied by different people," he said.

Other art experts have taken issue with the pair's conclusions. One critic, Professor Philippe Daverio, said that identification of a Caravaggio's organic and ever-evolving work could not be made by looking for the presence of key "designs". "Design doesn't exist in the character of Caravaggio," he said. "And design wasn't needed in his painting. These sketches can't really be compared to anything."

Another critic, Francesca Cappelletti, who helped to establish that The Taking of Christ was painted by Caravaggio, was blunter: "To me, these pictures still seem like typical works of Peterzano." Another critic, Tomaso Montanari, said sarcastically the claim was akin to taking 100 drawings by Verrocchio (Leonardo da Vinci's master) and attributing them to the creator of the Mona Lisa.

It's perhaps not surprising that the latest controversy should centre on Caravaggio: fascination with the artist is at an all-time high. Some evidence even suggests that the artist, who added a revolutionary degree of grit and realism to the prevalent mannerist painting of his era, has even replaced Renaissance giant Michelangelo at the top of the unofficial Italian art charts.

Philip Sohm, of the University of Toronto, studied the number of publications devoted to both artists during the past 50 years, and found that since the mid-1980s the baroque painter has moved ahead of his Renaissance rival.

Interest has been increased by attempts in recent years to shed light on the mystery surrounding Caravaggio's death in 1610 at the age of 38. An investigation, involving DNA tests and comparisons with living relatives, led experts to conclude that the painter was probably buried in Porto Ercole, in Tuscany, after suffering an illness, thereby bringing centuries of speculation, including assassination theories, to an end.

Caravaggio was active in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily. But he often had to flee cities and leave works unfinished because of his tempestuous nature, which led him to kill at least one man. He eventually returned to Italy confident of obtaining a papal pardon, thanks to powerful connections in Rome.

Scepticism regarding the Milan paintings and sketches is in itself unlikely to harm sales of Mr Bernardelli Curuz's and Ms Adriana Fedrigolli's e-book, Young Caravaggio: One Hundred Rediscovered Works, dedicated to their claims and the pictures they are based on. But their publishing ambitions hit a snag this week with news that Amazon in Italy had withdrawn the book from sale, albeit without commenting on whether this was due to doubts over the quality of the research it contained.

Mr Curuz told Ansa: "The blocking of the Amazon system has damaged us because to understand the discovery it is essential to see the 1,000 images that we have collated."

The pair said they had no idea why it had been dropped, but added that it would be available on a website for self-published books. On his Facebook profile, Mr Curuz, was putting on a brave face. "We are calm and confident. The world will judge our work," he wrote.

But it is not only the world. It is also Milan's ever-busy prosecutors, who are looking into whether they should investigate the Brescia art historians for the illegal publication of private images.

Caravaggio: Life and legacy

Born Michelangelo Merisi, in Milan, on 29 September 1571.

Early life The family moved to nearby Caravaggio in 1576, from where the artist took his name. In 1592 he fled to Rome after a brawl.

Career Known for his rare naturalism and use of light and shade, a technique called chiaroscuro, that would influence later giants, including Rembrant. Despite lifelong fame – and notoriety – he sunk into obscurity after his mysterious death, only to be rehabilitated in the 20th century.

Expert view "He reclaimed the human form... there was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same." Robert Hughes, critic, in 1985.

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Underground drug smuggling tunnel found in Arizona

Mexico’s army stumbled upon another secret tunnel for smuggling drugs into the United States, according to wire reports. This one is 755-feet long, dug 60 feet beneath the ground and runs across the Sonora-Arizona border. That pales in comparison with the 2,000-footers found in past years. But what it lacks in length it appears to make up for in sophistication: “It had electricity, ventilation and small cars to transport the drugs through the tunnel,” The Associated Press reported, citing a Mexican general. The find comes on the heels of the Mexican election. Enrique Peña Nieto, the presumptive president-elect, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has suggested Mexico may shift its drug-war policy but has offered little in the way of specifics. Would that mean, no more magic tunnel discoveries? Drug tunnels are some of the sweetest candy for fantasizing about the narcotics trade. They're portals that ultimately link American drug users up with brutal cartels that rule swaths of the Americas. One such ruler, Chapo Guzman, whom the US Treasury Department has deemed the “world’s most powerful drug trafficker,” is known to have commissioned a few of these tunnels. New Yorker magazine’s William Finnegan writes: “The story was that he built his tunnels with slave labor and, in the interests of secrecy, killed the workers when they were finished.” Late last year, ABC News reported authorities had discovered as many as 75 drug tunnels linking Mexico and the United States.

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Thailand's drugs smuggling battle

For centuries the Golden Triangle - where Burma, Thailand and Laos meet - has been notorious for the production of opium and drug smuggling.

While the amount of poppies grown there has more than halved over the past decade, production of the stimulant methamphetamine has soared.

Most of it is produced in Burma, and much of it ends up in Thailand.

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Dilawar Ravjani, ringleader of the £176m 'carousel fraud' VAT scam.

The carousel fraudsters pretended to have sold more than 4m mobiles phones worth £1.7bn, most of which never existed.

Fifteen people have been convicted of trying to steal £176m from the public purse in one of the largest and most complex mobile phone taxfrauds yet uncovered.

The case, which has involved five separate trials and concludes on Tuesday with the sentencing of a Brussels freight company owner, came to light after investigators discovered a trail of ghost companies reselling nonexistent phones.

After a three-week investigation, officers found nearly £47,000 in cash hidden in the boot of a car belonging to John McFarnon, chairman of Unique Distribution, a well-known and partly legitimate mobile distributor.

The ringleader, Dilawar Ravjani, is to serve 17 years, the longest penalty imposed for so-called carousel fraud, after masterminding the attempt to illegally reclaim millions of pounds in VAT payments from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

Investigators were alerted after they discovered the gang had been claiming to trade phones made by Sony Ericsson and Samsung which, although they had been unveiled in promotional campaigns, were not yet on sale. The gang pretended to have sold more than 4m mobiles phones worth £1.7bn, most of which never existed. It is thought a further 50 companies, some of them established distributors, may have been linked to Ravjani's scam.

A total of £170,000 in cash was found during the clampdown, codenamed Operation Inertia, including £80,000 stuffed into drawers at one of Ravjani's companies, Future Communications, which investigators believe was to be used to pay off accomplices at other companies.

"This is one of the largest carousel frauds we have done," said the HMRC criminal investigations director, Donald Toon. "The people who run these scams aren't isolated individuals. Some of them are professional major fraudsters and it's a massively international game."

One of those convicted, John Conroy, found to be a covert backer of the scam and a shadow director of Unique, was resident in Marbella in Spain. Future's finance director, Zafar Chisthi, fled to Pakistan before his trial. He was sentenced in his absence to serve 11 years and remains in hiding.

The transgressions took place over just eight months. The companies involved, based in Stanmore in Middlesex and Abingdon in Oxfordshire, hoped to siphon a maximum amount in monthly VAT repayments before tax inspectors caught up with the scam.

The false trades are believed to have begun with a ghost company based in the UK claiming to have imported thousands of phones from Belgium. Sony Ericsson had just announced its P990 handset, and the company claimed to have imported 90,000 of them. It claimed a further 96,000 Samsung Serene handsets had been brought into the UK.

But the gang had failed to spot a manufacturing delay that meant neither model had left the production line at the time. The phones passed through other "buffer" firms, before being bought by Future.

A chain of five or six ghost companies was created to muddy the waters. More than 5,700 individual trades were recorded, some taking just a day to pass through the entire chain. Future, at the end of the chain, would then claim to have sold the phones to a ghost company in Europe.

Because companies cannot claim the cost of VAT payments back from their European counterparts, the UK tax authorities reimburse VAT on any items bought in the UK but sold abroad. This is done in order to encourage exports.

However, following a clampdown on VAT repayments where the first company in the chain has gone missing, Future was unable to make its false claims and forced to change tack. It then began importing the phones itself, and selling them on to its sister company Unique and as many as 50 other distributors, both real and shell companies. Unique would then sell the phones to a European company and claim the tax back.

The scam also involved two freight companies, A1 Freight in Staffordshire and Boston Freight in Belgium. Vans shuttled across the channel, generating documents to prove goods had crossed borders.

When investigators raided Boston Freight, they found three vans loaded with pallets of phones, but the handsets in questions were low-value devices, which they believe may have been dummy cargoes designed to throw customs off the scent. The high-end Sony and Samsung devices shown on the paperwork were never found.

Three successful VAT repayment claims were made from November 2005 to June 2006, totalling £107m, before the fraud was stopped. The money, which officers are attempting to claw back, was laundered through offshore bank accounts, property and car companies. Future had attempted to claim a total of £176m.

Investigators' suspicions were confirmed when they discovered Unique had, during the eight months in question, declared eye-catchingly large sales of £2.2bn but paid a total of £17.74 in VAT.

When Unique's offices were raided, they found a majority of staff working on low value but legitimate trades such as reselling airtime, while a small team were employed generating the bulk of the company's income from the carousel fraud.

"This was theft from the taxpayer," said Toon. "It fundamentally undermines the UK tax base and that's why the enforcement response is so critical."

Marshall Boston of Boston Freight is due to be sentenced at Kingston crown court on Tuesday .

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GODFATHER George 'The Penguin' Mitchell has become the African link man in a cocaine chain from Bolivia to the streets of Ireland and Europe.

Crime kingpin Mitchell is Moroccan link man in massive drug deals with Bolivian cocaine cartels

 

 

AFRICAN KING: George ‘The Penguin’ Mitchell brings drugs in through Africa

GODFATHER George 'The Penguin' Mitchell has become the African link man in a cocaine chain from Bolivia to the streets of Ireland and Europe. The crime lord is sourcing massive shipments of cocaine, similar in quantity to the massive one seized by gardai this week, directly from a Bolivian cartel, gardai believe.

 

Mitchell (61) is believed to be organising the deals from a new base in Morocco, where he has spent the majority of his time in recent years after leaving a property in Amsterdam. Gardai believe the cocaine ending up in Ireland is now sourced from Bolivia by Irish criminals.

Mitchell - who is suffering from health problems as a result of heavy drinking - has been living in a plush villa in ex-pat community in the north African country for the last two years. Last year, the heavily-fortified house where Mitchell had been living in Amsterdam, in de Watermolen 7, was placed on the rental market.

It is believed that The Penguin - who earned his nickname as a result of his waddling, awkward gait - shared the home with his Indonesian mistress and business partner.

Mistress

However, records show that a new mortgage for €450,000 was taken out on the house in 2010 in the name of a 33 year old Irish man. The Penguin is also involved in a legitimate business with his mistress, importing furniture from South East Asia.

A source has claimed that Mitchell even recently made an appearance on a trade stand promoting Indonesian furniture imports and crafts at a prestigious art, furniture and food fair in The Hague. It is believed that The Penguin regularly returns to Amsterdam to visit his family which is based in the country.

 

 

DEAD: Derek Dunne with his wife

Mitchell's daughter, Rachel, has also spent time with her father in Morocco, after moves between Marbella and Amsterdam. In June 2000, Rachel's partner - heroin dealer Derek 'Maradona' Dunne' - was gunned down outside the home she shared with her father in Amsterdam. Dunne (33) was a former League of Ireland player who became a major player in Dublin's heroin trade.

 

A source said that the blow Gardai delivered to cocaine import routes last week will be a major headache for Mitchell's crime organisation. Detectives from the Garda National Drugs Unit recovered a staggering 440 kilos of cocaine following a ten-day operation on Tuesday. The drugs were imported to Ireland in a container disguised as wooden flooring.

Two men were charged in connection with the seizure - the largest ever on land in the history of the state.

"Cocaine has been directly traced to Bolivia and came through west Africa and then into Europe. The drugs were then shipped into Ireland from a port in Europe," a source revealed.

Mitchell is described as a link man and a facilitator in the international drug trafficking trade who works with other investors from Ireland and the UK who stump up cash for major deals.

Shipments

 

 

DEALING: Mitchell used public telephone boxes

Mitchell has extensive contacts and regularly organises shipments of drugs into England, from where one of his main business partners in Liverpool sends them forward into Ireland. He is extremely careful and prefers to use public telephones when doing business.

 

A Dutch security source said Mitchell is placed under surveillance whenever he returns to Holland and that he is aware of this and doesn't even litter the street to avoid drawing unwanted police attention.

"Some top Dutch gangsters are close to British and Irish criminals and they like doing business with them, having a drink and the odd bit of socialising together.

"They know each other and help one another out."

After Derek Dunne was killed, Rachel moved into a house on Groote Peel in Amsterdam with her two kids. The house is also listed as a business address for a wholesale jewellery company, registered with the KvK (chamber of commerce) by her brother, George jnr. Mitchell's other son, Paul, also lives in Holland.

Mitchell, originally from Ballyfermot, has spent the last 25 years flooding Ireland with cocaine, heroin, cannabis and weapons. He started his involvement in serious crime with murdered gangland boss, Martin 'The General' Cahill, and took part in a number of robberies before he was jailed for five years in 1988 for stealing a big consignment of cattle drench.

After his release from prison, Mitchell was one of a number of big-time Dublin criminals who realised the vast fortunes which were to be made from drug trafficking. He set up a well-organised racket from his west Dublin base and quietly began to establish himself as the biggest cannabis and ecstasy trafficker in the State.

But the multi-millionaire criminal fled Ireland following the murder of crime reporter Veronica Guerin 1996 after gardai turned up the heat on drug traffickers. He moved his base to Holland after the arrest of his right-hand man Johnny Doran who was caught with £500,000 worth of cannabis on the M50 at Castleknock, Dublin.

Broker

 

 

PAL: Johnny Doran

Mitchell quickly struck up close ties with Middle Eastern and South American drug-trafficking gangs. He became one of the key suppliers for cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy into the British and Irish markets. The Penguin is also a key broker for other gangs operating in Ireland, Britain and Europe.

 

Apart from drug trafficking, Mitchell and his associates are involved in illegal firearms trading, prostitution and money laundering. In March 1998, he was arrested by Dutch police and charged with a £5m computer supplies robbery. During his court appearances in Holland, Mitchell described himself as a respectable businessman involved in import-export. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment by Dutch judges for the computer parts robbery.

However, he walked free a year later in 1999 due to lenient sentencing regulations, with a third of his term automatically remitted for good behaviour and the time in pre-trial custody also deducted.

One of his associates - who was sentenced to 16 months in prison for the same offence - was Mitchell's pal, notorious Dutch drugs baron Johan Bolung. The flamboyant Dutchman who drives fast top of the range cars and wears exclusive watches has been a close associate of Mitchell and other leading Irish drugs traffickers for many years. He is known to have extensive drugs dealings with Moroccan and also Turkish criminals.

When Mitchell arrived in Holland in 1996 he stayed for a while in Bolung's luxury apartment in one of the wealthiest suburbs south of The Hague. Despite The Penguin's lifelong involvement in criminality, some of his relatives are highly respected members of Irish
society.

Furious

Last year, Fine Gael Presidential candidate Gay Mitchell was furious after he was quizzed about the Penguin, his first cousin, on RTE Radio.

"I am the first cousin of an ambassador," he claimed.

"I am the first cousin of people who have been involved in security forces of the State. I have cousins who play international rugby for Ireland, none of them have anything to do with me."

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Beware of missed call to check SIM cloning

Next time if you get a missed call starting with +92; #90 or #09, don't show the courtesy of calling back because chances are it would lead to your SIM card being cloned. The telecom service providers are now issuing alerts to subscribers —particularly about the series mentioned above as the moment one press the call button after dialing the above number, someone at the other end will get your phone and SIM card cloned. According to reports, more than one lakh subscribers have fallen prey to this new telecom terror attack as the frequency of such calls continues to grow. Intelligence agencies have reportedly confirmed to the service providers particularly in UP West telecom division that such a racket is not only under way but the menace is growing fast. "We are sure there must be some more similar combinations that the miscreants are using to clone the handsets and all the information stored in them," an intelligence officer told TOI. General Manager (GM) BSNL, RV Verma, said the department had already issued alerts to all the broadband subscribers and now alert SMSes were being issued to other subscribers as well. As per Rakshit Tandon, an IT expert who also teaches at the police academy (UP), the crooks can use other combination of numbers as well while making a call. "It is better not to respond to calls received from unusual calling numbers," says Tandon. "At the same time one should avoid storing specifics of their bank account, ATM/ Credit/Debit card numbers and passwords in their phone memory because if one falls a prey to such crooks then the moment your cell phone or sim are cloned, the data will be available to the crooks who can withdraw amount from your bank accounts as well," warns Punit Misra; an IT expert who also owns a consultancy in Lucknow. The menace that threatens to steal the subscriber's information stored in the phone or external memory (sim, memory & data cards) has a very scary side as well. Once cloned, the culprits can well use the cloned copy to make calls to any number they wish to. This exposes the subscribers to the threat of their connection being used for terror calls. Though it will be established during the course of investigations that the cellphone has been cloned and misused elsewhere, it is sure to land the subscriber under quite some pressure till the time the fact about his or her phone being cloned and misused is established, intelligence sources said. "It usually starts with a miss call from a number starting with + 92. The moment the subscriber calls back on the miss call, his or her cell phone is cloned. In case the subscribers takes the call before it is dropped as a miss call then the caller on the other end poses as a call center executive checking the connectivity and call flow of the particular service provider. The caller then asks the subscriber to press # 09 or # 90 call back on his number to establish that the connectivity to the subscriber was seamless," says a victim who reported the matter to the BSNL office at Moradabad last week. "The moment I redialed the caller number, my account balance lost a sum of money. Thereafter, in the three days that followed every time I got my cell phone recharged, the balance would be reduced to single digits within the next few minutes," she told the BSNL officials.

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France brings in breathalyser law

New motoring laws have come into force in France making it compulsory for drivers to carry breathalyser kits in their vehicles. As of July 1, motorists and motorcyclists will face an on-the-spot fine unless they travel with two single-use devices as part of a government drive to reduce the number of drink-drive related deaths. The new regulations, which excludes mopeds, will be fully enforced and include foreigner drivers from November 1 following a four-month grace period. Anyone failing to produce a breathalyser after that date will receive an 11 euro fine. French police have warned they will be carrying out random checks on drivers crossing into France via ferries and through the Channel Tunnel to enforce the new rules. Retailers in the UK have reported a massive rise in breathalyser sales as British drivers travelling across the Channel ensure they do not fall foul of the new legislation. Car accessory retailer Halfords said it is selling one kit every minute of the day and has rushed extra stock into stores to cope with the unprecedented demand. Six out of 10 Britons travelling to France are not aware they have to carry two NF approved breathalysers at all times, according to the company. The French government hopes to save around 500 lives a year by introducing the new laws, which will encourage drivers who suspect they may be over the limit to test themselves with the kits. The French drink-driving limit is 50mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood - substantially less than the UK limit of 80mg.

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The number of Britons arrested overseas is on the rise, official figures have shown.

 The Foreign Office (FO) handled 6,015 arrest cases involving British nationals abroad between April 2011 and March 2012. This was 6% more than in the previous 12 months and included a 2% rise in drug arrests. The figures, which include holidaymakers and Britons resident overseas, showed the highest number of arrests and detentions was in Spain (1,909) followed by the USA (1,305). Spanish arrests rose 9% in 2011/12, while the United States was up 3%. The most arrests of Britons for drugs was in the US (147), followed by Spain (141). The highest percentage of arrests for drugs in 2011/12 was in Peru where there were only 17 arrests in total, although 15 were for drugs. The FO said anecdotal evidence from embassies and consulates overseas suggested many incidents were alcohol-fuelled, particularly in popular holiday destinations such as the Canary Islands, mainland Spain, the Balearics (which include Majorca and Ibiza), Malta and Cyprus. Consular Affairs Minister Jeremy Browne said: "It is important that people understand that taking risks abroad can land them on the wrong side of the law. "The punishments can be very severe, with tougher prison conditions than in the UK. While we will work hard to try and ensure the safety of British nationals abroad, we cannot interfere in another country's legal system. "We find that many people are shocked to discover that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office cannot get them out of jail. We always provide consular support to British nationals in difficulty overseas. However, having a British passport does not make you immune to foreign laws and will not get you special treatment in prison."

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