British authorities suspect some of the UK’s 12 most wanted criminals may be hiding in Spain, and they launched the Most Wanted 2026 campaign on Thursday in Alicante to try to find them.
The operation was unveiled by the National Crime Agency and Crimestoppers with help requested from Spain’s Ministry of the Interior, as investigators said the fugitives are accused or convicted of crimes ranging from drug trafficking and money laundering to murder and sexual offences. The campaign is aimed at a list that includes men believed to have links to Marbella, Malaga, Alicante and Tenerife, all places that have long drawn British visitors and, in some cases, fugitives trying to stay out of sight.
The effort has a hard edge of experience behind it. Since 2019, Spanish law enforcement agencies have arrested 254 British fugitives in Spain who were wanted on international arrest warrants, including 86 in Málaga and 54 in Alicante. Across the wider Operation Capture effort, police and security agencies say they have arrested 98 of the 111 fugitives publicly named in campaigns that began two decades ago in 2005.
Among the men now being sought is Simon Dutton, accused of organising large-scale cocaine imports and money laundering operations. Investigators say one seized shipment linked to him was worth £1.5 million. Another target, Dean Eighteen, is wanted for allegedly submitting fraudulent VAT refund claims through two companies where he was the sole director, and authorities believe he left the UK in January 2019. Derek McGraw Ferguson is wanted in connection with the murder of Thomas Cameron in Glasgow in 2007, and Scottish police suspect he may be living under a false identity.
The campaign matters now because the search is no longer a domestic one. British authorities say Spain has become part of the picture, and they are asking for the public’s help through the Crimestoppers lines 091, 062 and 900 926 111. More than 300,000 British citizens live in Spain, and that community, along with the country’s coastal and tourist areas, gives investigators a wide field in which a fugitive can disappear.
Javier Marín said pursuing a fugitive is a way of acknowledging victims and recognising their loss or suffering, adding that every open case keeps the hurt alive and that persistence in the search is a form of recognition. Rob Jones said Spain is not a safe haven for fugitives and that the collaboration has shown that if they run, investigators will not stop searching and will bring them back to face justice.
For the fugitives still at large, the message from the 20th anniversary of Operation Capture is blunt: the net is already being cast across the places they may think are safest. The question now is not whether the hunt will continue, but which of the 12 names will be the next to surface in Spain.
