The Civil Guard has arrested one of the most wanted criminals by the UK in Torrevieja. According to EL MUNDO, the Armed Institute proceeded to the arrest of Philip Barry Foster, sentenced to 8 and a half years in prison for fraud and money laundering, who was on the run.
The detainee, included in the most wanted list by the British authorities, enticed his victims by offering them the possibility of launching them to fame in exchange for significant amounts of money. Barry Foster had previously worked as an actor in television series, and the British Police requested the collaboration of the Spanish Security Forces because they had located him in the Marbella area.
Last May, the UK released the image of this individual along with 11 others at an event held in Alicante, where the collaboration of authorities and citizens was requested. Therefore, with his arrest, Barry Foster joins the list of more than 250 British fugitives arrested in Spain since 2019. The independent organization Crimestoppers participated in the dissemination of the image of this and other criminals, asking for anonymous help to locate each of them in our country.
The detainee is mainly known in the UK for having played Christian Wright in the long-running British series 'Brookside', a soap opera broadcast by Channel 4 between 1982 and 2003
Foster convinced young aspiring models and their families that thanks to him, they could get professional jobs. To achieve this, he referred them to alleged agencies and photographic studios that charged significant amounts for sessions and low-quality photographic portfolios that, in practice, were not useful for entering the professional sector, but brought him substantial profits.
The National Trading Standards investigation concluded that the scheme operated between 2011 and 2019 and affected more than 6,000 victims, resulting in a fraud of around 13.6 million pounds, about 16 million euros. Authorities maintain that Foster ran the organization from Spain, especially from the Marbella area, where he was finally arrested by the Civil Guard.