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COSTA BLANCA
Vol. 3 Issue 74
www.theolivepress.es
Your expat
voice in Spain
Jávea · Altea
February 10th - February 23rd 2022
yorkshirelinencostablanca.com
TO LILIBET WITH LOVE IT was a very special day for Queen Elizabeth, and her distant cousin King Felipe was not about to be left out. He and wife Letizia sent their congratulations to Queen Elizabeth II as she celebrated her Platinum Jubilee. It was a warm and affectionate message commemorating the seven decades since Elizabeth’s coronation. “With this message, we would like to join you in celebrating this remarkable anniversary and wish you all the best for the years to come. With much affection,” it read. The Spanish royals are known to have a warm relationship with the British Royal family, calling Queen Elizabeth ‘aunt’ and her late husband Philip ‘uncle’.
The two royal families have close blood links. Queen Elizabeth is the great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, while King Felipe VI is her great-great-great grandson. Romantic ties began when Spain’s King Alfonso made a state visit to Britain in 1905 and met Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Victoria Eugenie. The pair married, the princess becoming Queen Ena of Spain, and their grandson no other than Spain’s former King Juan Carlos I. Juan Carlos I abdicated in 2014 in favour of his son, King Felipe VI. Opinion Page 6
NO TIERS
A WEDDING planner the Olive Press exposed as a conwoman in Spain a decade ago has been jailed in Ireland. Expat Sue Danker has been found guilty of deception and theft over a series of weddings in Andalucia. The Irishwoman pleaded guilty to fleeing Spain, leaving a trail of debts in 2012, before reappearing on a reality TV show in Ireland. We revealed how Danker had left countless couples high and dry on their big day when she ‘vanished’ from the Costa del Sol after her company, Spanish Dream Weddings, went bust. But rather than coming clean and telling clients about her financial problems she carried on trading and failed to return deposits. The 48-year-old and husband Howard Danker had previously featured in an Irish TV documentary in 2007 called The Great Escape, about their move from Dublin to Marbella to set up their wedding business.
Expat wedding planner who shattered dozens of couples’ dreams led down the aisle… to prison By Kirsty McKenzie
She later appeared in the reality TV show Clubland, The Wright Venue, in 2015, after she fled from Spain amid the financial scandal. We first reported that Danker had run into financial difficulties in October 2012, after a string of expats revealed they had lost their dream weddings thanks to the planning scam. Danker admitted in a Dublin court that she continued to trade until September 2012 when she no longer had enough money to pay contractors. She pleaded guilty to three counts of deception, and three of theft on dates between September 7 and 10, 2012. Her vicPLUMBING & AIR CONDITIONING SPECIALISTS
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tims included Sarah Foran and Colm Moriarty who paid her €10,000 to organise their nuptials. Detective Garda James Codd told the court that Foran discovered that none of the contractors had been paid a week before the big day.
TRAGIC: Yana and Hoseyni
Handed in
Church
The list included a florist, a DJ, a videographer, a singer and a flamenco dance troupe. In addition, church fees had not been paid. “We are both reasonable people and would have worked with Suzanne,” said bride Sarah, adding that because Danker had cut off communication, they were left feeling powerless at an important moment in their lives. Danker had continued to seek payments from the couple and the court heard that she was ‘scrambling and floundering, trying to offset deposits
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FLASHBACK: Our 2012 front page on Danker
and commissions from one wedding to fulfil obligations to another wedding’. Her defence insisted that she had successfully organised about 200 weddings but had been let down by an investment of €12,000 promised earlier that summer. While admitting she ran the business ‘in a chaotic and haphazard way’ she was let down by a partner in Gibraltar who did ‘a runner with the money’. We later revealed how Danker had landed herself a plum job as the PA to Irish multi-millionaire Michael Wright in 2015 and went on to appear on Irish TV. In Clubland’s first episode, Rooney ironically admitted that she wanted ‘the most press coverage possible’. Danker had her threeyear prison term suspended on condition SALES & RENTALS SPECIALISTS that a sum of €9,500, Moriara•Calpe•Jalon•Javea•Denia•Altea was paid into court. She must pay another €5,000 over the next two years. www.moraira-hamiltons.net
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AN American accused of killing his wife and burying her near Valencia has returned to Spain to face the music. Michael Martin Hoseyni allegedly murdered Yana Rose while on holiday in Cadiz, before driving her across Spain and burying her at Christmas in Alzira. An international manhunt was launched to locate the 55-year-old, who was last seen at a rental car office in Milan on January 11. Yana, a Hari Krishna, had been missing since Christmas Day when she last spoke to her mother from Los Barrios.
Ankles
Iranian-born Hoseyni was arrested on January 28 at Madrid airport after returning on a flight from his home in Colorado. The US citizen, who ran a car repair business, had fled after burying his wife in a shallow grave in woods near Alzira hospital. After an FBI manhunt he voluntarily decided to return to Spain, where if convicted he will spend less time in prison. Hoseyni was allegedly seen on CCTV ‘dragging the victim by the ankles and putting her in the boot of a car’, reContinues on page 2