Vanishing double murder suspect among UK most wanted

A man suspected of shooting a young mother in her home, as well as the murder of a teenage boy, is among the UK's 12 most-wanted fugitives believed to be hiding in Spain.

There has been no trace of Liverpool man Kevin Parle in the decades since the murders of Lucy Hargreaves, 22, in August 2005 and of Liam Kelly, 16, in June 2004.

Parle, now 45, is on a list of suspects released by the National Crime Agency (NCA) as part of a campaign to flush out criminals hiding among the ex-pat community.

Others include former Brookside actor turned fraudster Philip Foster and Derek Ferguson, wanted over the murder of a man outside a Glasgow pub.

Hargreaves was sleeping on the couch of her home in Lambourne Avenue, Walton, with her two-year-old daughter and her partner asleep upstairs, when three men burst into the house.

They shot Hargreaves and then set fire to the house before fleeing the scene.

Merseyside Police said 21 people have been arrested in connection with her death but no-one has ever been convicted after two other men were found not guilty at trial.

Kelly was shot dead on a street in Dingle, Liverpool, in what is believed to have been a drug dispute.

Ferguson, now 62, is the prime suspect in the shooting of 49-year-old Thomas Cameron in the car-park of the Auchinairn Tavern in the Bishopbriggs area of Glasgow in June 2007.

Foster, 50, who played Christian Wright in the Liverpool based soap, is wanted to begin an eight-and-a-half year prison sentence for duping victims into thinking they could become professional models.

The NCA said he then swindled them out of substantial amounts of money for "poor quality, digital photographs that were not usable to secure professional jobs".

Also on the list are several suspected drug dealers, including Simon Dutton, 49, from Bolton, who is believed to be behind large shipments of cocaine from Spain to the UK.

The NCA said one consignment of the Class A drug, intercepted by police, uncovered 10.5kg of cocaine with a street value of £1.5m.

Another name on the list is Russian national Alexsandr Vladimirovich Kuksov, suspected of laundering millions for UK drug dealers.

Kuksov, 22, is believed to be hiding in Tenerife and is accused of being part of a gang that washed drug money by buying cryptocurrency.

The gang also provided the same service for cyber criminals, while also helping Russian oligarchs avoid sanctions by buying property in the UK.

NCA deputy director of international Rick Jones said criminals trying to blend in with British ex-pats often continue offending while living in Spain.

"They will generally integrate themselves into these communities, which are populated by many, many thousands of British people who are perhaps enjoying their retirement or running businesses there," he said.

"Criminals will do what they do here, which is integrate themselves and hide among society, and then abuse the trust of those communities and offend against them."

He added it was also "very easy" for on-the-run criminals "to offend against victims or vulnerable people in other countries from anywhere in the world".

The NCA's series of public appeals for information on fugitives in Spain, named Operation Captura, has been running for 20 years.

In that time there have been 11 public appeals naming the most-wanted criminals thought to be in Spain and 98 of 111 offenders and suspects have been caught, the agency said.

Fugitives often use fake passports in different names, and in extreme cases have surgery to alter their appearance to try to avoid detection during their new life.

The NCA said during the previous Operation Captura appeal, members of the public came forward with information within days.

Jones said: "(Suspects) shouldn't feel that they are safe there.

"But the reason some of them choose Spain is that there are these large communities there, English-speaking, and they feel that they can hide better amongst that fraternity.

"They need to be outside the UK to avoid our attention and they will look for places where they can integrate themselves, and a British expatriate community is ideal for that for them."

In the past year, 56 criminals have been extradited back to the UK from Spain.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.

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