{"id":23964,"date":"2026-05-15T13:22:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T13:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/23964\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T13:22:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T13:22:20","slug":"simon-dutton-one-of-britains-most-wanted-criminals-arrested-on-same-day-public-campaign-launched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/23964\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Dutton: One of Britain’s most wanted criminals arrested on same day public campaign launched"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of Britain’s most wanted criminals was arrested in Spain on the same day a public campaign was launched to find 12 men thought to be hidden in the country.<\/p>\n

Simon Dutton, 49, was detained in La Nucia, a town north of Benidorm, and remains in Spanish custody.<\/p>\n

During the dramatic arrest, Armed Civil Guard officers surrounded a whitewashed villa before forcing entry while shouting “police, police” in English.<\/p>\n

Footage captured officers entering the property with sniffer dogs and counting large amounts of cash.<\/p>\n

A man believed to be Dutton was filmed being escorted to a patrol car by Spanish officers. <\/p>\n

The convicted drug smuggler from Bolton received a 14-year jail sentence back in September 2016 for organising major cocaine imports and money laundering.<\/p>\n

One interception alone was valued at \u00a31.5million.<\/p>\n

The wanted criminal can be identified with the name “Rachel” tattooed on his left arm.<\/p>\n

\"Simon<\/p>\n

A man believed to be Simon Dutton was arrested in Spain<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

PA<\/p>\n

His arrest came on the same day the National Crime Agency, Spanish police and Crimestoppers teamed up to launch their latest “rogues gallery” in Alicante, commemorating Operation Captura’s 20th anniversary.<\/p>\n

Over the years, the campaign has issued 11 public appeals which have resulted in 98 of 111 publicised fugitives being captured.<\/p>\n

In the past year alone, 56 criminals have been extradited from Spain to the UK.<\/p>\n

NCA director general operations Rob Jones said: “Fugitives rarely stop offending while on the run.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The 12 most wanted criminals thought to be hiding in Spain<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

PA\/NCA<\/p>\n

“They continue to harm communities in both Spain and the UK, and attempt to stay under the radar by blending into large British expat populations.<\/p>\n

“These are not people you want in your neighbourhood.”<\/p>\n

All 12 men on this year’s list are believed to have connections to Spanish locations including Tenerife, Marbella, Alicante and Malaga.<\/p>\n

Kevin Thomas Parle, 45, is wanted by Merseyside Police for two murders. He is accused of killing Liam Kelly in Liverpool in 2004 and Lucy Hargreaves in Walton a year later.<\/p>\n

He has links to Malaga and Costa Blanca.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Derek McGraw Ferguson, 62, is sought by Police Scotland for the murder of Thomas Cameron was killed outside a pub on Auchinairn Road, Glasgow, on June 28 2007.<\/p>\n

Ferguson is described as white, 5ft 3ins, stocky and balding.<\/p>\n

Alexsandr Vladimirovich Kuksov, 23, was last known to be living in Tenerife and is accused of being part of a gang that converted drug dealers’ cash into cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n

The criminal gang allegedly provided the same service in reverse for cyber criminals and is alleged to have helped Russian oligarchs to evade sanctions by purchasing UK property.<\/p>\n

NCA deputy director of international Rick Jones warned that criminals try to blend into British expat communities.<\/p>\n

“They will generally integrate themselves into these communities, which are populated by many, many thousands of British people who are perhaps enjoying their retirement or running businesses there,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Criminals will do what they do here, which is integrate themselves and hide among society, and then abuse that trust of those communities and offend against them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Britain’s most wanted criminals was arrested in Spain on the same day a public campaign was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[102,66,273,2012,17,394],"class_list":["post-23964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-crime","tag-europe","tag-news","tag-sgg","tag-spain","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}