SEVERAL notorious figures on the Costa del Sol have been snagged by Spanish police in an ambitious operation to bring down the fabled Lyons crime clan.
The Olive Press understands that one of the 14 people handcuffed over connections to the infamous Scottish gang is expat resident Ian Hollis.
The long-time pub owner is a well-known personality on the Costa del Sol, having formerly run a string of popular local pubs including Our Bar in Calahonda.
Hailing from Newcastle, Hollis has lived in southern Spain for more than two decades but was taken into custody by cops in late March as law enforcement officers raided more than a dozen properties on the Costa del Sol, plus a handful in Barcelona.
It is understood he has since been released pending further inquiries.
But last month’s dramatic arrest is far from the 64-year-old’s first brush with the law.
Hollis was sentenced to 18 months behind bars in the UK four years ago for his role in laundering organised crime money from a fraudulent timeshare scheme.
His crime associate and former solicitor Anthony Lea, from St Helens in north-west England, was also handed a jail term of three years.
Hollis skipped the hearing at Reading Crown Court to stay in Spain, citing bogus health problems including Covid-19, heart surgery and a bad knee.
A warrant was subsequently issued for his arrest, with judge Sarah Campbell warning that the Geordie would be taken into custody if he ever returned to the UK.
The court was told that Hollis helped assist a gang that targeted timeshare owners.
“The victims were cold-called by telephone with seemingly attractive offers to purchase their properties, for which of course the fraudsters wanted a fee payable in advance of between £1,000 and £1,500, sometimes higher,” prosecutors said.
“The payments were taken by card or bank transfer. After that, the apparent queue of people looking to buy these properties did not materialise and the companies could not be contacted.”
To rub salt into the wounds, a connected scam company would then ring up the same victims with an attractive offer to get the stolen money back – for another fee.
Hollis was accused of being responsible for laundering around £74,000 (€85,000) by withdrawing it from a bank in Gibraltar, before handing it over to a mysterious figure in Spain.
As part of the deal, Hollis kept five per cent of the cash.
The court was told that the gang hoped to avoid detection by defrauding small enough amounts that police would not be interested.
But they were proved wrong when a resident complained to West Berkshire Trading Standards, kickstarting a three-year investigation that discovered how hundreds of timeshare owners had been defrauded.
“Timeshare has always been a magnet for criminal activity,” said Daniel Keating, information officer for the Timeshare Consumer Association.
“In the 1980s and 1990s, well-known British criminals laundered money through high-pressure timeshare sales operations in Spain and the Canary Islands.
“After protective consumer laws were passed in Spain, the timeshare companies almost universally ignored them, making millions more at the expense of vulnerable tourists.
“Then came the criminal claims firms. Only a tiny amount of companies offering to help you escape, help you escape your timeshare or claim compensation for being illegally sold are genuine.”
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