Walter Finch
ONE of Spain’s leading timeshare kingpins – and a close friend of late British mafia don John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer and killer Kenneth Noye – is set to go on trial next year.
Mohamed Derbah, who has long been associated with Tenerife’s underworld, was finally charged in March this year, according to Olive Press sources.
The sensational news has come to light during the ongoing extradition hearing of former accountant and ‘undercover spy’ Paul Blanchard, 79, in London this week.
Yorkshireman Blanchard worked for years in Derbah’s organisation, based in Tenerife, claiming to have supplied the British and Spanish secret services (CGI) with detailed evidence of wrongdoing.
Now, during a hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, Spain is seeking to bring him back to face charges of money laundering for Derbah between 1999 and 2001.
The Lebanese businessman will also go on trial over ‘a string of charges’ around the same time, Blanchard told the Olive Press today.
Blanchard, who is fighting extradition, claims he was secretly working for the CGI (Comisaría General de Información) at the time.
Under oath, he told a judge he was passing on crucial intelligence not just about Derbah’s network, but also terrorist groups such as the IRA and ISIS.
One of his most explosive claims is that the CGI ignored his vital intelligence that, in his words, ‘would have prevented the Madrid and the London 7/7 bombings’.
He also believes that Spanish authorities are trying to bring him to Madrid to charge him as a co-defendant alongside Derbah.
“This is a total violation of my human rights and I will never get a fair trial in Spain,” he told the Olive Press today.
“I will demonstrate to the court this week that I was working for the government and I have the recordings to prove it.”
He has been attending court with a documentary team from Sky TV and is set to publish a book on the case.
On the first day of the hearing, Blanchard told Mark Summers KC, who represented Julian Assange during his extradition battle with the USA, that Derbah had harboured the M-25 road rage killer Noye.
Noye infamously went on the run in 1996 after he stabbed motorist Stephen Cameron to death in front of his fiancee.
Blanchard told the court Derbah asked him to help write his autobiography and he, in turn, employed journalist David Taylor to ghostwrite it.
The tape recordings made during interviews with Derbah form a key part of his defence.
Among the tapes, which form part of his defence, the Lebanese businessman discusses his links to Palmer and Noye.
Prosecutors in Madrid have been trying to bring a case to trial against Derbah for decades.
He was last arrested in 2005, alongside seven others, charged with fraud and money laundering connected to timeshare in the Canaries.
But police were unable to pin him down and are now relying on the evidence collected by Blanchard, who stopped cooperating with them as a witness in 2004.
Blanchard claims that Spanish intelligence officers, who he named in court (but we are not publishing), ‘burned’ him and refused to tell British police he had been working with them.
Derbah was considered to be the right-hand man of Palmer, known as ‘Goldfinger’ for allegedly smelting down gold from the infamous 1983 multi-million pound Brink’s-Mat gold bullion robbery at Heathrow airport in London, although he was later cleared.
The pair reportedly made a fortune from fraudulent timeshare activities in Tenerife in the 1990s, for which Derbah was arrested in 2001.
The events of the gold heist and subsequent efforts to go on the run have even been turned into a hit BBC drama called The Gold.
Derbah allegedly helped Noye escape the UK via a series of planes and helicopters at the time.
Noye was eventually picked up living under a false name in Zahara de los Atunes, in Cadiz, and sentenced to jail for life in 2000. He was released in 2019 at the age of 72.
Palmer was murdered outside his gated Essex home by an unknown gunman in 2015 at the age of 64.
He was facing charges for fraud, firearm possession and money laundering in Spain at the time.
Most recently, Derbah has involved himself in local politics and frequently appears on local TV and media.
His newly-formed party, Fuerza Canaria, styles itself as a ‘a diverse group of citizens, united by a common desire: to improve our community and ensure a prosperous future for all.’
The Olive Press attempted to speak to the businessman today via telephone and email, but the mobile number listed on the party’s website ‘does not exist’.
Derbah denies any wrongdoing.
