Police thought wanted ex-soap star was in Marbella — he was actually on the Costa Blanca
A former British soap actor wanted over a long-running fraud case was living on Spain’s Costa Blanca, about 500 kilometres from where police believed he
A former British soap actor wanted over a long-running fraud case was living on Spain’s Costa Blanca, about 500 kilometres from where police believed he was hiding. The man, Philip Foster, spent at least 15 years in Spain while authorities said he was thought to be in Marbella.
The answer turned out to be far sunnier, and far closer to tourists and expats than investigators had realised. An ECHO investigation tracked Foster to Punta Prima, a waterfront area near a row of apartment towers and a private pool, where he had been living until May this year.
Hidden in plain sight
Foster, once known for appearing in the hit soap Brookside, is accused of living a luxury lifestyle while avoiding scrutiny and allegedly pocketing an estimated £13.6 million from thousands of victims. The paper’s reporting says he had spent years in Spain without being found by the authorities who believed he was on the Costa del Sol.
Instead, he was on the Costa Blanca, in a resort area popular with holidaymakers and overseas residents. Punta Prima sits on a stretch of coast where families walk the promenade, children play in private pools and apartment blocks line the waterfront. It is not the sort of place that usually looks like a fugitive’s final hiding place. But then, few do.
A wider problem for police
The case underlines how international fugitives can slip through the gaps when police rely on outdated location intelligence. Marbella and the Costa Blanca are both well-known expatriate hubs in Spain, and each has long drawn people trying to live quietly under the radar. Foster appears to have done exactly that, at least until this year.
The gap between where police thought he was and where he actually lived is no small detail. It is a 500-kilometre miss, across a country where a fugitive can move between coastal towns, blend into tourist traffic and stay out of view for years. In Foster’s case, that meant living in the open while remaining effectively out of reach.
The ECHO said its investigation found Foster had been based in the Costa Blanca until May. Authorities, meanwhile, had believed he was in Marbella with his wife, Nicola Jones. The report gives no indication that police had located him before the newspaper’s tracking work.
For investigators, the episode is a reminder that a name on a wanted list is only part of the picture. The real challenge is where to look — and how long someone can keep moving, or simply stay still, before the trail goes cold. In this case, the trail ran 500 kilometres in the wrong direction.
