Paolo and the Spanish Shakedown
About 15 years ago, a good friend of mine Paolo asked me to go with him down to Andalucia where he was in final negotiations on the purchase of a hill top finca. We drove straight from the 24 LeMans race in the height of summer and as we covered ground further and further south through the day and night, the heat rose and by mid-morning Monday we had arrived in gas mark 4 country, and in an open top Lotus Elise this was a little bit toasty.
We were about 30 Klicks from Alora, our hill town destination, moving slowly down out of the mountains, part of a convoy of old camper vans and passion wagons full of hippies that had just spent the weekend in the lakes high above the the region thats winds down, eventually, into Malaga.
We rounded a long bend to see a dozen or so Guardia Civil, fully armed with automatic weapons, spread across the road, hauling in anything they fancied, they saw us coming and I think they thought they had drawn an ace. (I should add we probably did look a trifle "dodgy" bleach whitened hair and wraparound mirror shades and the thousand yard stare you acquire from a thousand miles of hot road with the roof down - you get the picture). The Guardia looked to be an average age of about twelve and a half, fingers fidgeting on triggers, nervous did not fully describe the atmosphere on all sides. We were approached by el Capitan I guess, who proceeded to bark, with unconcealed aggression, questions which we could not understand to answer. His boys looking all a bit new to carrying serious firepower were all over the car, in and out, bonnet and boot, once el Capitan realised we were "stupido Inglesi" his manner became even more irate. We were each leant against the front wings of the car, legs spread, hands out, pockets emptied - mine contained mainly hot fluff, Paolo's contained cigarettes, a lighter and 40,000 Euros in cash.
This was the first time I had seen sight of the eurowad. Paolo explained calmly that the money was a cash deposit on property, we weren't sure if el Capitan really bought it but it was the truth no matter how it looked. I think that they had already decided that we were low life, Costa del Crime London drug dealers on a shopping trip, but they were only right on three counts - not thankfully the vital drug dealer one. It seemed like we were there an hour although probably only 20 minutes, it was blisteringly hot, the Guardia were on their hands and knees in the car searching for something, biting on bits of gravel, sniffing on lumps of mud plucked from the footwell, we felt later that it must have been a drugs haul. We were not carrying anything stronger than 20 Benson & Hedges and half a sweaty ham baguette.
El Capitan was getting annoyed, he had nothing on us, he barked at Paolo to open the boot which he didn't want to do because the number plates were in there, when I say number plates I mean the "correct" number plates rather than the personalised plates (for show purposes only) that Paolo, the plonker, had used all weekend in Le Mans and forgotten to switch since, Unlocking the boot Paolo quickly moved his sweatshirt over the loose plates lying in the back. The Guardia had either given up by this time or were all young and incompetent because they did not even clock the plates, (thank you Saint Christopher) and after a stern talking too, along the lines of "if you are planning on living down here, best you learn some Spanish you morons", we were soon on our way.
Ten minutes later while blatting down the road, the lighter that Paolo had thrown onto the top of the dashboard, having heated up nicely to critical, exploded with a huge bang and flew out of the car. We both looked at each other and thought about what would have happened if the thing had overheated while the search had been in progress. I think a hail of hot spanish lead would have ensued and our t-shirts and shorts would not have afforded an awful lot of protection, although on the upside the fact that the armed teenagers were standing in a ring around us would have resulted in a massacre.
Fifteen years down the line Paolo still lives way up in the mountains where he is convinced no one will ever find him. Including me at times.
Note: Names (and registration plates) have been changed to protect the innocent.
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