British fugitive actor arrested in Torrevieja

The Guardia Civil has arrested one of the United Kingdom’s most wanted criminals in Torrevieja. The Guardia Civil arrested Philip Barry Foster yesterday, Thursday 17th September. Foster, who was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for fraud and money laundering, was a fugitive from justice.

The arrested man, who was on the British authorities’ most wanted list, lured his victims by offering them the chance to become famous in exchange for large sums of money. Barry Foster had previously acted in television series, and British police requested the assistance of Spanish law enforcement agencies 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 authorities and citizens were asked to collaborate. With his arrest, Barry Foster joins the list of more than 250 British fugitives apprehended in Spain since 2019. The independent organisation Crimestoppers participated in disseminating the images of him and other criminals, and anonymously requested assistance in locating each of them in Spain.

The arrested man is best known in the UK for playing Christian Wright in the long-running British series ‘Brookside’, a soap opera broadcast by Channel 4 between 1982 and 2003.

Foster convinced aspiring young models and their families that he could help them obtain professional jobs. To that end, he referred them to supposed agencies and photography studios that charged significant sums for low-quality photo sessions and portfolios that, in practice, were useless for entering the professional sector, but which generated substantial profits for him.

The investigation by National Trading Standards concluded that the scheme operated between 2011 and 2019 and affected more than 6,000 victims, generating a fraud of around £13.6 million, approximately 16 million euro. Authorities maintain that Foster directed the organisation from Spain, specifically from the Marbella area, where he was finally arrested by the Guardia Civil.