People, corruption and dirty money: the hidden face of marbella | M6 | Enquête Exclusive

On the Costa del Sol, Marbella is something of a Spanish Saint-Tropez, but more unbridled. It remains the upper-crust resort that attracts the biggest fortunes in the world with, in recent years, newcomers from the Middle Eastern Emirates or East-European countries. The Mediterranean climate and the Andalusia countryside have much to do with it. But there are other reasons for Marbella’s success that don’t feature in the tourist brochures. First, the authorities who don’t look too closely at construction permits, which allows the anarchic building of luxury blocks, but also some wild properties for the nouveaux riches. And above all the cash business. Land and apartments are paid for up to 50% in cash, enormous sums on the black that escape any controls and that make the Costa del Sol an immense launderer of drug money. Because Marbella is just a few miles from Morocco, one of the major crossroads of the drug trade. Jet-setters, traffickers, cash?it’s an explosive cocktail and two years ago the Spanish police decided to clean it up.