HUNDREDS joined the Chief Minister and other top Gibraltar leaders at Casemates Square to celebrate Pride with the local LGBTQ+ community. In one of the most well-attended events of the Pride event in local history, ministers from the Government agreed with leaders of the Opposition about the need to oppose homophobia and the social marginalisation of minority groups. After the speeches, the parade wound its way down Main Street with a huge rainbow flag borrowed from Spain. After the action, international music and dance acts took centre stage for the rest of the night. Chairperson of the LGBTQ+ Committee Lorraine Olivera reminded the public that a sexual identity was not a choice.
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TREATY IN DOUBT THE future of Gibraltar’s relationship with Spain has been thrown into murky waters with any treaty now at the mercy of the Spanish general election. Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said that while he would like to sign an EU treaty with the UK on Gibraltar ‘as soon as possible’, it will probably not happen until after next month’s poll. And that means that negotiations could take a drastic direction if a new PP government, with extreme right party Vox,holding the balance of power is voted in. Albares recently said he had put on the table ‘a global agreement that covered all aspects necessary for there to be a zone of shared prosperity between Gibraltar and the Campo de Gibraltar’. But he added he was ‘waiting for the UK to say whether it is in favour of this agreement or not’ and he also confirmed no new rounds of negotiation were planned before the election. A deal is therefore very unlikely this year, particularly if the PP goes into a coalition with Vox. While the PP has always made life difficult for Gibraltarians, Vox infamously unfurled a huge Spanish flag across the face of the Rock in 2016. Worse, the party’s general secretary Macarena Olona said Spain and the EU should ‘suffocate’ Gibraltar by immediately closing the frontier.
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“We are not here because we choose to have a difficult life, because we choose to be ridiculed, because we choose to suffer hate speech,” Olivera said. “We are all different but we are all equal if we have that same equal playing field. “That is what we want.” The visiting entertainers spoke of the unique atmosphere at Gibraltar Pride. Connor Fisher told GBC it was ‘not for how much money they could make but about why we are having these parties and why they’re needed’. And Cheryl Hole added how she loved ‘the sense of community’ and how ‘it’s been incredible to be part of such a special day’. The LBTQ+ Committee thanked all politicians for their ‘amazing support’ and said plans were already in place for 2024.
ROLL CALL
Incredible list of senior establishment figures top the list of investors in Globix ‘Ponzi scheme’ SEVERAL senior politicians, a leader of the opposition and a former Chief Minister are among an eye-opening list of Gibraltar’s key power brokers who allegedly invested in a fraudulent crypto exchange. The extraordinary roll call of Globix punters, seen by the Olive Press, also includes leaders in business and finance, as well as the boss of a top legal firm. They are just some of the hundreds of people in Gibraltar, Spain and the UK that handed over a collective €26 million to Globix boss Damian Carreras to invest. A total of 136 investors have so far made applications to the liquidators attempting to unravel the complex web behind the Gib-based firm. A number of them handed over millions to the business, which was administered by Miracle World Ventures, registered in the British Virgin Islands. Sole shareholder Carreras and his associate, tech officer Pavel Sidorov, are wanted over suspicions they syphoned millions from crypto wallets
THE Costa del Sol and Costa de la Luz have been singled out as key black spots for the ‘chronic cancer’ of environmental destruction. An environmental charity has slammed both coastlines for the continuing urban ‘over-development’ they face. Ecologistas en Accion is particularly concerned about the two hotspots of Tarifa and Vejer de la Frontera. The green group says both face ‘uncontrolled illegal construction’ with an alarming amount of further planned development, as revealed by the Olive Press last year. Much of it, around Atlanterra, and close to Tarifa’s virgin Valdevaqueros beach, has already been approved by the local town hall. The number of illegal homes around El Palmar, meanwhile, is leading to the discharge of untreated sewage into the sea. The green group has also handed a black flags to the town halls along the entire length of the
By Walter Finch
after the exchange had locked investors out of their funds in early 2022. But the company was only put into voluntary liquidation one year later, on March 10, 2023, exactly seven days after the Olive Press first broke the story. As reported last issue, Carreras, 39, failed show up at a Gibraltar court hearing to answer questions about his company’s missing millions.
Questions
Gibraltar Supreme Court heard that at least €1.3 million was spent during this period on lavish spending sprees at upmarket shops in nearby Marbella. The year-long gap between alarm bells ringing and formal action being taken raises questions as to why more was not done to pursue Carreras, given the influence of the establishment figures involved. Most investors we have spoken to cit-
Black marks Costa del Sol, for its continual overdevelopment. “The Malaga coastline has excessive light pollution generated by industry and mass tourism,” added a spokesman. The three areas are among 48 beaches singled out for black marks around the country this year. An alarming ten are in Andalucia, with Huelva city particularly fragile after a damaging oil spill in February, while nearby La Antilla beach gets one for overdevelopment. Meanwhile ‘recognitions’ were handed to Almeria for its continuing scandal surrounding the illegal 411-room Algarrobico hotel. Granada comes under attack meanwhile, for urban abuses and pollution at La Herradura Continues on Page 2
ed ‘FOMO’ (or a fear of missing out) after seeing early investors withdraw ‘unbelievable’ gains of up to 30% per month at the beginning. An apparent Ponzi scheme, Carreras lured in later investors by showing them the ‘VIP list’ of some of the best-known establishment figures in Gibraltar already allegedly invested. The Olive Press understands the majority, at least a dozen of them lawyers, have chosen to stay in the background. “They would prefer to sit on their hands and write off their money rather than publicly admit they were conned in a clear Ponzi scheme,” one senior legal source explained this week. “The reputational damage is anything but good,” he added. “After all, these are the very people who are often paid to advise on multi-million pound deals and help to create laws and bring in regulations in areas like crypto-currencies.” The saga meanwhile did not help Gibraltar get off the Financial Action Task Force’s grey-list.
Kidnap
The Rock was placed on the list for countries with inadequate anti-money laundering and terrorist funding controls in June last year, and it will stay there for at least another year, after a review last week. More alarming, perhaps, are the implications that Globix became a repository for ‘a lot of drug lords and other kinds of black money.’ “There were some questionable transactions going through various accounts,” said one source with deep access to the case. Carreras claims to have been receiving death threats and is worried for
the safety of his partner and child. His fears are grounded in reports that last summer Sidorov and his wife, who we are not naming, were kidnapped from their home, near Alicante, at gunpoint, over the missing millions. He wrote to liquidator Adrian Hyde in an email that it would be ‘foolish to compromise my location’ as he tried to dodge face-to-face meetings to answer questions.
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