Does your Motorhome Czech out

I would guess a few people will be checking out there motor homes if they bought on the Costa Blanca within the last three years. The Guardia Civil, have revealed that staff from Alicante ITV vehicle testing stations have assisted in the selling of written-off motorhomes as new. This follows the arrest of 27 people. Twenty one of them are vehicle inspectors at the ITV stations.

The 33 Motorhomes were amongst more than 400 which had all been sent for scrap as unfit to be on the roads. They had all suffered serious damage in floods which happened in France in 2008. The Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that a Czech company which bought the vehicles, supposedly to break up for spare parts,instead repaired them and fitted them with new plates and vehicle identification numbers.

33 were sold on to an Alicante company for 9,000 € each and then theses were given false vehicle inspection . The vehicles, which posed a serious risk on the roads and for their occupants, were then sold as new, some 10,000 € below the market price.

The total amount defrauded is put at more than 1 million €.

No news on whether or not the buyers have all been informed but I am hoping it was a top priority to remove them from the roads.

Trying to "sort it"

The ongoing sage
John and my mate Lil have been getting a lot of attention lately. They are both community presidents and the not so happy campers in their respective communities are hoping they can work a miracle. Well the English speaking ones anyway. The big issue is of course Brit TV. “Where’s it gone”, from those just over for a holiday or for the winter. “Can we get it back” everyone is asking this. Of course almost everyone wants to know what the alternatives are, if those same alternative companies will them selves be closed down. Then there is the question of community satellite dishes. That brings a whole new raft of question, not least of all who would pay for the installation of same. Very controversial this when some communities have Brits who have not paid there community fees.

Our daughter Bec was acting as a translator at another community meeting the other day and she said it was on the agenda there too. Of course all communities will be looking at their TV reception equipment in the near future anyway because by April 2010 all analogue tv will go in Spain. Oh happy days.
Glad John is President now and not me. Only thing I can say is when I was President I used to say to people that I was neither God nor in the Guardia and therefore could neither enforce the law or perform miracles. Lil and John are beavering away try to come up with an answer so I do hope everyone will be a little patient and also appreciate how much time and effort they are expending on this.
Incidentally we have never had Brit TV in our house nor do we miss it.

Big haul for the Guardia

The Guardia Civil made a big haul last week when they boarded a hired yacht 10 miles off the coast of Javea, They found the hold was packed with drugs. They arrested the Spanish skipper and members of crew, and escorted the yacht back to its home port of Alicante. A thorough search revealed 147 bales of Hashish weighing between 4 and 4.5 tonnes. It is thought the yacht called Malta Blue had made a rendevous with another vessel as it had not had time to make a return voyage to North Africa.