Elche

By mid-week on Wednesday, police in Alicante arrested four individuals behind an elaborate online rental scam that cheated forty-one victims out of nearly fifty-three thousand euros, which even involved tricking a woman into acting as a money mule through a fake WhatsApp job offer.

At the same time, regional economic figures showed massive momentum, with Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport hitting record heights after welcoming more than sixteen point eight million passengers in the first nine months of the year, driven strongly by British holidaymakers.

Down in San Miguel de Salinas, proposals were also submitted for a one point seven million euro campsite development catering for one hundred and seventeen motor homes near the La Pedrera reservoir.

Then on Thursday, legal proceedings in Alicante saw a construction business owner handed a six-month suspended prison sentence and a fine after ten of his residential building workers were discovered working without social security registration.

Officers raided the home of the alleged ringleader in Alicante, seizing over 1,400 euro in cash.

Staying local with town hall matters, a court in Elche has backed the Torrevieja Council civil servant in a significant dispute over career progression pay.

The worker had completed more than 22 years of service before earning a promotion to a higher category in May last year.

While the council recognized her top seniority level, they insisted on calculating her financial supplement based on her old, lower band.

The city is hosting the 7th National Land Transport Congress at the Felicidad Sanchez Social Center in La Florida, running from today through to Friday.

More than 100 representatives from police forces across Spain, including local police, the Guardia Civil and regional officers, have gathered to discuss crucial issues like personal mobility vehicle rules, insurance and the practical challenges of roadside drug testing.

In some very positive economic news for our region, passenger numbers at Alicante Elche Miguel Hernandez Airport have soared to record heights.

More than 16.8 million travelers passed through the terminal during the first nine months of the year, representing a rise of over 10%.

Let's start with a major crime development that connects right here into the province.

A massive international police operation codenamed Showtime has seen twenty people arrested, including one suspect detained in Elche.

The investigation, which brought together the Guardia Civil, Europol, and the United States DEA, successfully broke up a major network supplying cocaine to other criminal groups.

Officers tracked logistics and supply runs made back in August using modified cars fitted with hidden compartments.

During coordinated raids, police searched properties, seizing substantial amounts of drugs, including roughly twenty-two kilos of cocaine at a property in Barcelona and twelve kilos in Sant Boi de Llobregat, alongside cutting agents, precision scales, and hydraulic presses.

Sixteen vehicles were impounded in total, with two featuring mechanical secret bottoms.

The Elche suspect now joins nineteen others facing serious charges.

Staying with serious news across the wider Alicante province, new road safety figures from the DGT show that thirty-four people have lost their lives on interurban roads across Alicante between the first of January and the seventh of October, two thousand and twenty-six.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We are reconverting Elche.

[laughs] Yes.

Wow.

I'm in what was once a shoe factory in Elche, Spain.

Now, it's also one of the best hopes to solve an urgent problem for Europe's space industry, and the problem is this: in 2025, the United States launched 180 rockets.

Europe launched seven.

[upbeat music] In this episode, we'll look at why that gap exists and what the people in that converted shoe factory in Elche are doing about it.

You're from Valencia.

I was just recently actually not far from there in Elche

talking

to PLD Space where they're building rockets, so launchers, which is something that we don't really have very much of in Europe.

And then you have all these new small launchers with reusability.

These vibrant new markets that are rising.

And I'm very happy that you went to Elche and visited.

Indeed, PLD is one of these promising new actors, but it's not the only one.

And now, of course, SpaceX is the biggest stock market flotation in history.

So what's Europe's answer? Raúl Verdú founded PLD Space in Elche, Spain, 15 years ago.

Elche is a city better known for shoes than rockets.

It's one of the centers of Spain's traditional footwear industry.

PLD Space now builds rockets there in a converted shoe factory with hundreds of engineers and a production floor that looks like nothing else in Spain.

We went around on the horses, which was incredible.

So as soon as I got there, I could tell that it was nicer than, let's say, Elche, where I am, or Alicante.

And I

knew that I preferred it to Barcelona and Madrid.

Yeah.

And

yeah, that's, you know, and to a large degree, that's what Elche is like, because I'm walking around the city of Elche and you never, ever hear anybody speak in English

ever.