‘Neighbours from hell’ meant to be keeping low profile
‘MODEST’ LIVING: Johnny Morrissey’s hideaway apartment in Costa del Sol
SUSPECTED Kinahan money man Johnny Morrissey and his stylish wife Nicola became “the neighbours from hell” after swapping their €5 million mansion for a downsized €300,000 hideaway apartment.
The UK-born Irish passport holder and his Scots wife scaled back to a modest rented €1,200-a-month top-floor flat after US authorities publicly named Morrissey as a key member of the Kinahan cartel.
The couple had invited a glossy Marbella magazine into the fortress palace they had called home before the former Rochdale doorman’s “outing” as an alleged money launderer and Kinahan enforcer in April.
But the property where they were dragged out of bed at 6.40am last Monday by armed Spanish cops who smashed through their front door was a world away from the glamour of the lifestyle they flaunted on social media and at PR events for their drinks firm.
Expats
Neighbours at the unassuming apartment block near Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol yesterday told how they quickly got on the wrong side of other expats and locals after moving in over the summer.
One said: “They’d only just unpacked when Nicola had a run-in with the community president.
“It was around the time the kids were breaking up from school and she wanted to do a children’s party around the community pool with a water slide and a bouncy castle.
“She was told she couldn’t because it was a communal area and got very aggressive.
“Her husband stayed out of it and must have been a bit embarrassed about it all if he was looking to keep a low profile.”
Another local said: “They had dogs including an Alsatian and they used to hose down the poop the animals did on the outside corridor leading up to their front door so it ran off the edge and onto the properties below.
Behaviour
“It was totally unacceptable behaviour. They quickly got a reputation as the neighbours from hell.” Morrissey was about to be ordered to take down a camera over the front door of the three-bed penthouse flat when he was arrested. The community managers had been asked to tell the former Cork restaurant owner it was illegal to have the camera pointing out onto the street and other areas.
The camera meant he could tell who was outside the main entrance to the gated block in the hills a 10-minute drive from the sea if anyone tried to get into the enclosed area.
But it failed to alert him to the police operation.
One local said: “I heard a huge bang which was probably the moment [cops] stormed the flat but nothing after that and I went back to sleep. It was early, around 6.40am.” Morrissey (62) was allowed to put on a green T-shirt and white trainers before being led out in handcuffs.