FOURTEEN Guardia Civil officers have been found guilty of requesting and accepting bribes from passengers carrying banned items through security at Malaga airport.

The jury heard the officers would stop passengers at the departure gates after spotting an item to be confiscated, often foodstuffs, through the x-ray.

CCTV shows they then took travellers into private rooms where they received cash or other items in return for not confiscating the prohibited item.

They also often told travelers that certain items were banned when they were not and demanded bribes to let them through.

In Malaga’s longest ever jury trial, lasting one month and one day, 17 officers went on trial with three acquitted.

In one case they allegedly accepted money from an Asian man to allow him to bring prohibited foodstuffs through customs that broke laws on foot and mouth disease and bird flu.

One witness told the court that it was common knowledge among his friends and family in China that you could bribe the airport police with a €50 note.

The court has not stated when they will be sentenced.

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Why is it that every story about something bad happening in Spain — and it’s usually about something bad being found and fixed — is followed by an avalanche of English-sounding rants of: “Typical”, “Doesn’t surprise me”, “Spain is the worst”, “Happens all the time”, and so on?

    I just don’t see why people with such a low opinion of Spain would want to live there, or even bother to read a Spanish newspaper.

  2. Alun, why don’t you say the same thing about the people who wrote the article? You can quickly see why your argument doesn’t hold any water.

    Sadly, Spain is a corrupt country; the people that were surveyed in the recent corruption report said so, and the EC commissioner responsible for the report highlighted Spain (and also several other southern European countries) as being particularly affected by corruption. Even you know that is true, assuming you live here.

    And yes, it is typical and it no longer surprises me. But I wish it were different, of course. You’ll find the Spanish say the same thing too; the response is not “English” in any way or form. I don’t think the vast majority of people who moved to Spain knew how corrupt it would be.

  3. Alun, you’re RIGHT! It’s so obvious and lame to say what’s wrong with Spain, but this TROLL here just loves saying it and comes up with no positive or constructive things EVER.

    Please don’t waste any more time responding to his inane comments.

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