OLIVE PRESS
The
ANDALUCIA
Mijas Costa FREE
Your expat
voice in Spain
Vol. 13 Issue 332 www.theolivepress.es December 4th - December 17th 2019
EXCLUSIVE: Proof that not every dog gets to have his day! Allegations of millioneuro tax avoidance scam go unanswered as infamous David ‘the Dogman’ Klein dies in Spain HE liked to boast of his huge charity prowess, his millions made and his ability to train any type of dog. But most people who knew him will remember David ‘the Dogman’ Klein as a trickster, who got away with far too many scams. The notorious Euro Weekly News columnist - who had his first brush with the law when he impersonated a police officer as a teenager - passed away last week allegedly embroiled in a €1 million-plus tax avoidance probe. As the Olive Press reported in 2016, Klein, who also had a show on Talk Radio Europe, had been flogging dodgy international driving licences for decades. But, even worse, it has since emerged he hadn’t been declaring the income to the Spanish tax authorities. Now, in a remarkable beyond-thegrave tale, we can reveal how his daughter and son-in-law reported
DOGGONE! EXCLUSIVE By Robert Firth
him to Spain’s Hacienda earlier this year, ‘to make him pay for his evil ways’. Based in the UK, they were horrified to discover that Klein had used a Spanish bank account opened in his daughter’s name to launder the money he made from the €450 Taiwan-made international driving permits. “We denounced him to both the bank and the taxman, but the case has been going very slowly,” son-inlaw Conway Standing, told the Olive Press, adding how frustrating it was that he had died before it was concluded. “I wanted to publish it all when he was alive. What’s the point now that he’s dead,” he said. The Derby-based businessman, 66, revealed earlier this year how the
DODGY: Klein’s license advert (above left) and the late trickster posing with his Rolls Royce bank had been using ‘delaying tac- nami of stress approaching Klein at tics’ but that both it and Klein were an alarming pace. facing ‘severe penalties’ for it. “Klein is a hypocrite and obviously He added that he had a ‘detailed and has scant regard for the law but that highly itemised account of Klein’s won’t stop him being apprehended.” undeclared offshore accounts and The astonishing claims were last his undeclared income’. night backed up by Costa del Sol He insisted: “Basically there is a tsu- motoring expert Brian Deller, who
Sailing into a new storm
IT will go down as the hottest decade on record. With temperatures soaring, both on land and sea, global warming has become a major issue for Europe. With temperatures about 1.1C above the average from 2010 to 2019, desertification has been spreading, in particular, through southern Spain. The provinces of Granada, Malaga and Almeria are at serious risk, while Murcia and large parts of Valencia are also in danger of semi-desert conditions. The ‘exceptional’ heat around the world was announced by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), as climate activist Greta Thunberg (pictured) arrived in Portugal by boat en route for a key climate summit in Madrid this week. She is set to stay in the capital for two weeks, taking part in a huge demonstration this Friday. Temperature rises are close to the 1.5C warming that scientists insist will cause extreme weather and the loss of vital ecosystems in many places. Other consequences include severe droughts, heatwaves and floods across all continents. Overseas there have also been heatwaves. The findings by the WMO show that this year will be the second or third warmest since records began. The Arctic sea ice minimum in September was the third smallest on record. Opinion page 6
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IN PRINT: A 1954 Times article on Klein’s criminal activities was helping Standing in the tax probe. Deller, 82, who had previously been involved in a legal battle with Klein, after he hacked his website and redirected it to his own, said: “We are talking a million pounds at least. Money laundering. He really was a crook. “But like most conmen he was believable,” he added. He had taken Klein to task, via the Olive Press and his own website, describing the fake licences as ‘plasticated’ and containing ‘really bad Spanish.’ Law expert Antonio Flores, of Lawbird, in Marbella, described the international permits as ‘a scam, a sham.’ “Driving permits are issued by government offices,” he said. As for where the money went, according to Deller, it mostly went into his luxury lifestyle, that once included Rolls Royces and other luxury cars.
Enemies
He also had a stunning villa in upmarket Guadalmina, where he lived with his long-suffering wife Susan, a grand piano and his dog nicknamed ‘black boy’. The former dog trainer is no stranger to the criminal world, having first appeared in court at the age of 17 on charges of impersonating a police officer to con a female driver out of money. Reported in the Times, in 1954, he was convicted and fined 13 pounds. He went on to have various other brushes with the law in the UK, before moving to Spain in the 1990s. Gwilym Rhys-Jones, whose father Gwil also took Klein to court, said that the conman had made many enemies throughout the 90s. “He pissed off a lot of people,” he said. “He did lots of damage to a lot of people. I’d rather not say any more.” Klein died of pneumonia linked to cancer he had been suffering on November 29, in Malaga. Opinion page 6