Gender push

A NEW law will make it mandatory for corporate boards to be composed of at least 40% women.

Spain’s Parliament is set to introduce the ‘gender parity law’, which would see a similar quota set for the cabinet.

It was due to be passed last night on the eve of International Women’s Day today and will be ratified by congress next month.

All publicly-traded companies, or those with over 250 employees, must comply by July next year. Although many firms on the Ibex-35 already meet the quota, several fall short.

International Women’s Day

Childcare cash

A JUDGE has calculated the value of a stayat-home mum during 25 years of marriage; some €204,000.

It comes from the cost of paying for childcare and housework and was calculated during a separation hearing in Malaga.

The couple had got married under the separacion de bienes regime, which means that if they were to split, each would only have a right to their own assets.

This left the wife entitled to just half of a property she shared with her wealthy husband, who had amassed luxury assets over the years.

The judge calculated the cost of raising their two daughters and ordered the husband to cough up.

A KIDNAPPING of two expats foiled by Spanish police last year is linked to an enormous crypto currency scandal set to rock the country, the Olive Press can reveal.

The incredible drama which saw the couple held for several hours took place after hundreds of investors feared they had lost as much as €70 million in the ‘crypto scam’. The snatching of Russian Pavel Sidirov and his wife in June was initially treated by police as routine extortion, as we reported at the time.

The couple had been kidnapped outside their villa in El Campello, Alicante, by two bogus cops flashing fake Guardia Civil badges and a Russian woman acting as an interpreter. They were bundled into a car, stripped and the wife was tied up and used as a hostage.

The gang then threatened both their lives if they did not hand over

EXCLUSIVE: Kidnap, crypto and the Russians: The multimillioneuro scandal that may have defrauded hundreds in Spain

By Walter Finch

the codes to a crypto wallet containing millions.

Tech guru Sidirov cleverly bought time by telling the gang that the codes were distributed in 12 separate houses that they would have to go to individually to fetch.

And in one of them - with his wife still bound and gagged in the boot of the car - Sidirov was able to call his lawyer for help. The lawyer alerted the police, who were quickly on the scene to catch the kidnappers. Police arrested six people, including a retired Guardia Civil officer, while the alleged ringleader, Carlos Garrido (pictured), handed himself in in the ensuing days to deny he was a criminal.

Insisting he wasn’t a criminal, he claimed the scheme was a minor matter and he was merely representing a group of investors trying to recover €2 million ‘owed to them’ by Sidirov. While it seemed to be the end of the matter, the Olive Press can reveal today that the kidnapping is just a small part of a much bigger scandal that is set to engulf the already beleaguered crypto industry. The kidnapping is linked to a Gibraltar-linked crypto firm that has become immersed in a murky world of trading failures. According to well placed sources, hundreds of frantic investors are now scrambling to recover their funds from the trading platform Globix, which at its peak had almost €150 million under management. Over the last few months it has gradually become clear to investors, based in Gibraltar and Spain, that Globix has allegedly lost as much as two thirds of this enormous sum.

And in a bizarre twist, the Olive Press can reveal that the remaining €40 million is apparently in the hands of a shady IT firm based in Ukraine. It happened after Sidirov activated a mechanism during his kidnap that sent the codes to Globix’s partners in Kyiv.

An independent investigation by a well known Gibraltar financial company told investors they had been struggling to get any money back from Ukraine. It added the CEO of the Kyiv-based firm had ‘not been forthcoming’ in his efforts to return the money and was ‘now under arrest’.

A statement issued to investors

Healthy figure

MEDICAL negligence claims in the Valencia region last year fell by 4.5% to 963 compared to 2021, according to the Health Ombudsman.

Cacti alert

LLIRIA is to use drones in a pilot scheme to monitor invasive cactus species in the area. The aim is to allow more effective spraying in zones where cacti are most prevalent.

Equine help

FIRE crews rescued a horse and rider that fell into an Alboraya ditch on Sunday. The rider was uninjured but firefighters hoisted the animal out with ropes after it lay on its back with its legs in the air.

Tram hit

A MAN, 67, was hit by a tram heading to Denia station on Monday after fainting at a pedestrian crossing on Avenida Joan Fuster. He was admitted to Marina Alta Hospital’s ICU with head injuries.

British Nazi Extremist Pleads Guilty

A RACIST British extremist who lived between Alicante and Marbella has admitted he shared a stash of terrorist documents on social media.

Kristofer Kearney, 38, confirmed to the Old Bailey that he had shared the files that encouraged far-right terror attacks.

Known as ‘Charlie Big Potatoes’, the Liverpool man was extradited from Spain in September.

As well as sharing the manifestos of nazi killers Anders Breivik and Brenton Tar- rant, who killed 128 people between them, he ran a social media site called ‘Fascist Fitness’ out of Spain. The Olive Press monitored him for a year, as he travelled between a villa in Albir, in Alicante, and Marbella.