Your weekly news catch up in Mallorca

Two murder cases, thirty months apart, have been highlighted over recent days as they could both result in life sentences.

The older of these cases dates back to May 2021, when a Moroccan woman and her six-year-old son were strangled in Sa Pobla. Ali Kouch, the husband of Warda Ouchene and the boy's father, eventually called the Guardia Civil and confessed to the murders. The relationship had been abusive. Friends of Warda had told her to leave him. But she didn't. He strangled them and later went to Son Banya in Palma to buy drugs. Before calling the Guardia, he contacted a brother of Warda's and told him what had happened. There is a private as well as the public prosecution. It is the lawyer for the family who has called for a life tariff. The trial has yet to be scheduled.

That case was shocking, as was the one in November last year. A newborn baby was dumped in a rubbish container in Porto Cristo. Had it not been for a woman who witnessed a car pull up and throw something into the container and whose suspicions were aroused, might the baby have ever been found?

The baby's death was subsequently confirmed, but police investigators and the Institute of Legal Medicine in Palma suspected that she had been born alive. An autopsy proved inconclusive and so a request was made for analysis of the child's organs by a specialist laboratory on the mainland. The results of this analysis were revealed earlier this week. The baby had been alive.

The mother and two uncles of the child were arrested in November. All three were charged with suspected murder. The analysis having verified what the police had believed, the mother now faces the possibility of a life sentence.

Calvia town hall held to ransom

The police, the Guardia Civil's telematics unit specifically, were brought in by Calvia town hall after its systems were hacked and ransomware installed. The cyberattack occurred in the early hours of last Saturday. Once it was detected, a crisis committee was formed, while it became evident that the perpetrators were from the LockBit group of hackers, who have Russian connections. A demand of ten million euros was made. The mayor, Juan Antonio Amengual, insisted that not a cent would be paid.

The attack was only partial in that some services, e.g. email and the town hall's website, were unaffected. The CEO of a specialist company working on the recovery of the systems said that the extent of data that may have been "kidnapped" had yet to be established and that it could take several weeks to fully restore the systems.

Following this incident came news from the security forces who said that reports of attempted or actual online crime in Mallorca have increased by some 300% over recent months. The methods and the media vary. The former include phishing (use of deceptive emails to obtain personal and financial information), and the latter can be through emails, texts or WhatsApp messages. The police advice, as ever, is to never click on a suspicious link or page, and they are reminding users that banks never ask clients for sensitive information or provide them with secret codes.

Robberies - inside jobs?

The Guardia Civil and the National Police are investigating two robberies that correspond to their geographical areas of responsibility. The Guardia's was in Costa d'en Blanes and the National Police's was in Can Pastilla. In the first of these cases, a luxury property was broken into on New Year's Eve when the owners were out celebrating. The place was ransacked and a safe was among items that were stolen. An implication of the report was that the robbers had information about the owners' movements.

In Can Pastilla, the robbery was last week and around 5pm. This was a crime that involved violence. The owners, an elderly couple, were bound and gagged; some 4,000 euros were stolen. An aspect of the report about this robbery was that the couple had been expecting a visitor and so that when the doorbell to their chalet was rung, they unhesitatingly opened the door. It wasn't the visitor, but two robbers.

It wasn't a robbery but an attempt to occupy an apartment. Around 2.20am last Sunday, the emergency services were called to an address in Inca. A man was unconscious and bleeding in an interior courtyard; he had fallen from the fourth floor. He was rushed to Son Espases in a critical condition. It turned out that he and two others who were with him were members of a Moroccan gang known to the police for, among other things, occupying properties and moving from one squat to another.

Rising house prices and the ever-increasing problem for renting

Squatting can happen for a variety of reasons, one of which is pure criminality. But it can be a regrettable response to problems with accessing affordable housing. In this regard, there doesn't appear to be any respite from the increasing price of homes in Mallorca and the Balearics.

The College of Registrars latest report shows that the price has risen, on average, by 55% in just five years. In light of this report, the ABINI association of national and international real estate agents said that it will be impossible to absorb this sort of increase without there being significant consequences for the islands' residents. While the association insisted that new medium-priced houses are needed, the fact is that there are already significant consequences, hence why - as an example - the federation of residents associations in Palma was calling for measures such as a limit to the price to rent.

The federation is part of a nationwide confederation of residents associations adopting a common strategy to address housing problems. In Palma, one of these is the number of seasonal and tourist rentals. The renting of apartments for tourist purposes is of course prohibited in the city, but owners continue to be undeterred, the federation saying earlier this week that there are now serious problems with renting in the whole of Palma. The federation's president, Maribel Alcázar, reserved particularly harsh words for some foreigners "who don't give a damn about residents" and who charge tourists 200 euros a night.

The prices of conflict

Prices of a different sort - supplies of various kinds - are once more a concern, this time because of the crisis in the Red Sea. Certain sectors, e.g. construction, are being affected more by this than others. But the concern is not as great as it might have been. This is because lessons have been learned from both the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. There has, therefore, been a stockpiling of materials. Even so, these will run out and delivery times are going to tend to be longer.

There was a warning from the Pimem federation of small to medium-sized business associations that prices could rise by between 7% and 15%. For the time being, the disruption to shipping isn't affecting the tourism sector, but the president of the distributors association stressed that the conflict needs to be resolved before the start of the tourism season "or else we could find ourselves with a big problem".

Water needed for all the tourists

Another big problem could be water. At this time of the year, it would normally be the case that the two reservoirs in the Tramuntana would be, if not at maximum capacity, then at least around 70%. The very dry autumn meant that reserves were especially low. Recent heavy rain plus some snow have been beneficial, but as of Monday this week the combined capacity of Cúber and Gorg Blau was only 41.75%. Much more rain is needed.

Pressure on water reserves is greater than ever because of the increased number of tourists. If further confirmation were needed of the huge rise in tourist numbers last year, this came from the airports authority Aena. For Palma Son Sant Joan Airport in 2023, there were 31 million passengers. Both arriving and departing, this total eclipsed the previous record of 29.7 million. It was a record that should have come as absolutely no surprise.

As the numbers of tourists from the two main foreign markets - UK and Germany - were roughly the same last year as they had been in pre-pandemic 2019, the growth in tourism is clearly coming from elsewhere. Forecasts already hint that the 2023 record could be broken, and among other markets showing growth are Czechia and Slovakia. These are now set to grow more, as a Czech airline which went bust in 2005 - Fischer Air - has been relaunched. Mallorca is one of the revived airline's destinations for this year.