What seemed like a family-run travel agency ended up accumulating over €160,000 in scams. Dozens of people who hired them to arrange flights, accommodation, transportation, and excursions to their holiday destinations were left high and dry. The trips were either never booked or were canceled as soon as the victims had paid the intermediaries. Sometimes the holidays did exist, but under very different conditions than those agreed upon, as happened to a group of retirees who were expecting a cruise through the Greek islands and found themselves living in squalid conditions in a hostel.

Lawyer Francesc Comitre has accepted a four-year and seven-month prison sentence After admitting to leading a network that amassed around a hundred real estate scams, he was convicted of fraud. They targeted people, often elderly, experiencing financial hardship, offering them loans to help with their debts. However, what the victims unknowingly signed were the sale of their homes at a price far below market value or financial products like reverse mortgages. Everything was legally formalized, and the participation of notary Enrique Peña was crucial. Peña accepted a three-year and two-month prison sentence and will never be able to practice law again. A total of 17 people were involved between 2009 and 2015. Three died before the trial began this Monday, and the other 14 confessed to the fraud and reached an agreement with the prosecution, resulting in reduced sentences. Two of the victims, a mother and daughter, each owned 50% of an apartment on Compte Borrell Street in Barcelona. They were paying €1,350 a month on their mortgage, a sum that became difficult to manage during a time of financial hardship. On the recommendation of acquaintances, they contacted a loan company run by Comitre and another of the defendants. They concealed from the victims that the apartment's value at that time was around half a million euros, and agreed that a third defendant would buy it for €168,300, the same amount they still owed on their mortgage. In addition, the mother would receive a lifetime annuity of €500 and could continue living there until her death with a life estate. The agreement, ratified by notary Enrique Peña, included no guarantees in case the payments were not made. The final document set the sale price of the apartment at €150,000 and, instead of the lifetime annuity promised to the woman, stipulated that she would have to pay the new owner €350 a month to continue living in the apartment. A few days later, the defendant resold the apartment to a fourth defendant for €450,000 without ever mentioning the lifetime usufruct that had been promised to the woman. The victims even paid rent to this fourth defendant for a time under threat of eviction.

They obtained more than 700 boxes of fertility treatments at no cost using over 500 forged prescriptions. They then sold the drugs below market price to women who couldn't afford them and sought alternatives on websites like Wallapop and Milanuncios. This public healthcare fraud, targeting women trying to become mothers, amounts to €226,000. Those implicated included a primary care center employee and a pharmacist from Sant Adrià de Besòs, the director of a fertility clinic in Palma, and two women from Seville, a mother and daughter. Although almost all of them tried to evade responsibility by presenting themselves as victims of the scam, all five have been convicted. sentenced to barely minimum terms a decade after the fraud with a sentence handed down a year after the trial.

About two years ago, prosecutors and notaries began working on a protocol to alert the public to potential scams targeting the elderly. The project stalled, but has now been relaunched with improved prospects for success, as explained this Thursday by Barcelona's chief prosecutor, Neus Pujal. Beside her, the delegated prosecutor for victim protection, Silvia Armero, noted that cases of financial abuse and exploitation could be detected even if the only red flags considered were when someone else gives instructions to the signatory and when "absolutely ruinous powers of attorney" are authorized, leaving the person financially vulnerable. "Notaries sometimes say, 'If I think they are capable or lucid and want to grant the power of attorney, even if it's a ruinous power of attorney, let's grant it,' but we say 'no,'" warns Barcelona's chief prosecutor, Neus Pujal. "If it's an elderly person, if there are indications that they are not acting freely or that their capacity is not fully developed, they cannot authorize that power of attorney," he adds. Pujal acknowledges the difficulty notaries face when deciding whether a person has sufficient cognitive capacity to sign a power of attorney or a will, for example, without a forensic doctor to advise them directly at the notary's office. However, the protocol being developed by the State Attorney General's Office and the General Council of Notaries will establish "basic indicators" that can guide them in their decision. Prosecutor Sílvia Armero detailed examples that may raise suspicions, such as a person who speaks very little or who comes with a relative who speaks on their behalf. Also, when a transaction is proposed that "no one in their right mind" would want to make due to the financial harm it would cause. The protocol for prosecutors and notaries, which is still being finalized and will be applied throughout the country, must include the measures to be taken if a notary fails to exercise these precautions. Pujal believes the logical course of action would be to inform the Notary Association in his area, and that there could be consequences, such as disciplinary proceedings, when it becomes clear that the evidence has been ignored. In fact, just a few weeks ago, the Public Prosecutor's Office already asked the notaries "Exercise extreme caution" in the face of the increase in scams and cases of financial abuse against the elderlyIn cases of suspicion, the public prosecutor's office asks notaries to halt all transactions and report the case. The prosecutor's office also works in coordination with banks, and Armero says that in some cases the banks themselves have alerted the public prosecutor's office and stopped suspicious transactions. Specifically, he explained the case of an elderly person who went to the bank every day with their caregiver to withdraw amounts of between 1,000 and 2,000 euros, until they had withdrawn a total of more than 100,000 euros.

Almost every week, the Public Prosecutor's Office receives a case of a person with cognitive impairment who has gone to the bank or notary's office to carry out an important procedure accompanied by another person, usually a family member or someone from their social circle, without being fully aware of what they were doing. These suspicions of financial abuse typically reach the desk of Antoni Torres, the prosecutor in charge of protecting the elderly and people with disabilities in Barcelona, ​​following alerts from social services or nursing home staff. In contrast, it is much less common for these cases to originate from the banks themselves—there is an agreement in place, but the fact that an alert is received still raises "surprise" for the Public Prosecutor's Office—or from notaries' offices. According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, only two cases have been reported through notaries' offices in the entire Barcelona area in the last two years.

Yeah Only 2.26% of cyber fraud complaints end up in court.Even fewer cases result in a conviction. In fact, this is the first time the prosecution has secured a six-year prison sentence for the man who posed as a woman on dating websites to deceive other men and who obtained nearly €27,000 from six victims. He focused primarily on boys with vulnerable profilesLike Àlex, who had Asperger's syndrome and was nearing thirty when he encountered the con artist in October 2021. After "obsessive and repetitive" intimidation, the pressure "led" him to suicide, as acknowledged in the Barcelona Provincial Court's ruling, which ARA has obtained.

It's been a month and a half since The ARA told the story of a man from Osona He faces a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for a scam in which he claims to be the victim: during a car sale, he sent a photo of his ID to the buyer, who disappeared shortly afterward. A few months later, he discovered he was being investigated for a scam in A Coruña that had been committed using his ID. The case is ongoing. Cases like these, which demonstrate the risks of giving your identity document to certain people, are becoming increasingly common in the courts. Just this Monday, a man from Ibiza testified at the Barcelona City of Justice for almost identical events.

A seven-month police investigation has dismantled an active criminal network based in Catalonia and Andalusia that was dedicated to defrauding real estate investors. The operation resulted in the arrest of around twenty people, six of whom were remanded in custody this Friday. The gang is believed to have defrauded more than €1.2 million throughout Spain, and the victims are primarily property owners and investors who had purchased properties with purchase options, believing the transaction to be legitimate. The arrested individuals first searched for high-value properties on real estate websites. Once they selected the most attractive properties to entice investors, they conducted a thorough search to verify that the properties were free of encumbrances. It was therefore essential to identify the property owners, since, using their personal data, they could create high-quality forged documents—primarily identity documents and passports—that could easily go unnoticed, allowing them to steal identities and grant powers of attorney over the properties to people they trusted, explains Division Chief Martínez. It all began with a complaint filed in May 2025 by a notary's office in Figueres regarding an alleged large-scale fraud. During months of investigation, the police confirmed that the organization was stealing the identities of property owners and forging powers of attorney to gain control of certain properties, which they then used to defraud private investors who provided loans using the properties as collateral. The officers arrested 22 people in Manresa, Rubí, Sant Fruitós de Bages, Figueres, Salt, and Castellolí, as well as in the Sevillian municipality of Estepa. Martínez explained to ARA that during their raids and searches they discovered documentation leading them to believe they will uncover at least two or three more attempted scams, in addition to those already discovered. Therefore, he does not rule out further arrests.

"They were looking for friendship or a relationship, and there was a phase where they were pressured to send money or kept on premium-rate numbers for extended periods, and they suffered anxiety because the person they were involved with was having a very difficult time." This is how one of the researchers summarized the method they followed. The accused of defrauding at least six men by pretending to be a woman on dating apps. "Several of those he lured were vulnerable people or people with disabilities, like Àlex," the police officer added, referring to the young man who ended up committing suicide before the phone bills left his family bankrupt. In fact, one of the six victims listed in the case was accompanied by his guardian at a disability support organization when he reported the scam to the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police). This Friday, the young man attended the second and final day of the trial alone, where he explained that he lost between 600 and 800 euros to this scam, which caused him fear and anxiety. "They called me so many times that I had to stay awake all night. They told me they would come to where I lived, that I would receive large fines," he explained to the court. With some variations in each case, the scam always followed the same pattern: the victims knew a girl On the internet—the user always used the same mobile phone but went by different names—he asked for help to quit working for a webcam sex show company. He instructed them to call premium-rate numbers for as long as possible, even though there was no one on the other end of the line. Then messages arrived from another number. In this case, the caller identified himself as a representative of the sex show company and demanded transfers or more calls to avoid a supposed fine incurred as a result of the calls to the premium-rate number. The accused allegedly obtained almost €27,000 in this way, and the prosecution is seeking a sentence for fraud and extortion that could carry a maximum of 11 years in prison.

It all started with the announcement of the sale of a car, a Ford Fusion, on the website Milanuncios.comThe seller was a man from Osona, and the vehicle was an old car that cost less than 3,000 euros. It quickly attracted the attention of a buyer, Sergio from Seville. "He said he was a soldier and wanted the car for his daughter," the seller explains. The soldier was in a hurry to buy it. That's why he offered him an advance payment of 300 euros, a sort of guarantee that he would keep. The buyer asked for a photo of his ID because his manager wanted to prepare a reservation contract, and that way he could also begin processing the change of name on the vehicle. "He asked me to take the photo more than once so his face could be clearly seen. I thought it was strange," he says. After sending the photo of his ID, the buyer disappeared. It was the summer of 2021, and he didn't give it any more thought, and years passed. Specifically, it took three years until the Osona salesman received, in 2023, a summons to appear as a suspect in a Coruña court for defrauding a woman of 500 euros. How? With the sale of a vehicle. The Osona man claims that his ID was used to commit this scam, but, for now, the judicial investigation has been successful, to the point that the Prosecutor's Office has requested two and a half years in prison for him. The suspect maintains that he is not the perpetrator of the scam, but another victim. "I am not guilty, I am the victim, and I am caught with nothing. I feel powerless," he says.

Nazarenes, dressed in tunics and hoods, are the companions of the floats in a procession during Holy Week. But it is also the name given to one of the oldest scams, and there are several theories that explain it. The Nazarene scam consists of a fake businessman who goes to a company and places orders for a product that is already on the market. Although he never pays for the order, he does end up selling the merchandise. Some theories say that, since the scamming company later receives a procession of creditors, the name Nazareno was ultimately chosen. Others argue that, since the scam occurs in stages (like those during Holy Week), the name ultimately comes from here. Be that as it may, it remains a common scam, as demonstrated by a recent case: an Alicante cooperative dedicated to fruit production lost half a million euros in loquats.

As the world falls apart, we read in the NOW that Two caregivers have defrauded the grandmother they were caring for.The woman "decided to give one of them powers of attorney so she could carry out banking transactions," and with these powers, the process involved clearing her savings account. The money obtained was for noble purposes. The Mossos d'Esquadra say they sent part of it to their country of origin (I assume to the family) and underwent cosmetic surgery. They also invested in security cameras to know when the victim went shopping and thus smooth over her account later. I suppose the notary, on the day of the signing, must have found the whole thing quite normal.

She is 85 years old and lives alone in an apartment in Horta-Guinardó, Barcelona. She has no children and was widowed a few years ago. She maintains contact with some relatives, but it is more distant than in person because they live abroad. She has mobility issues and six years ago decided to look for a caregiver to help her. An acquaintance recommended a woman, and she ended up hiring her. Over time, the caregiver was assisted by her sister, and they both worked in the woman's home. Where one couldn't reach, the other would.

He claimed he wasn't in Barcelona so he wouldn't have to show the apartments he was offering on websites specializing in home searches, but in reality, he couldn't show them: the properties were fake, or if they existed, they were already rented, and he had no connection to them. He wasn't the owner, nor was he an authorized intermediary. The excuse he gave the victims for not letting them visit the property was that he worked abroad and that, if they didn't make a decision quickly, they would lose him; he was in high demand. And the victims believed him: how could someone so polite and who treated them so kindly really only intend to take advantage of their desperation?

Overnight, more than fifteen transfers had been made to his account, and 83,000 euros had been stolen. SIM swapping, which involves duplicating SIM cards to access confidential information and take control of digital banking. Their case has reached the Supreme Court and resulted in a ruling requiring banks to return money lost in scams. phishing or identity theft if they cannot prove that the client has been careless to the point of gross negligence. woman who brought the case to court, the judges reproach that "such an unusual event" as fifteen transfers of more than 80,000 euros in one night "did not set off alarm bells at that very moment"

The setting is luxurious and ostentatious, but only for show. The goal is to appear a successful businessman or a renowned collector, so they choose the ground floors of luxury hotels or rent an office with panoramic views of the city for a single moment: to defraud the victim. This is often the tactic used by specialized con artists. in the method of rip deal. Although these scams tend to be few in number—around thirty are consistently reported in Catalonia each year—the loot obtained is high.

Everything was planned, and also purchased. The chosen destination was Tenerife, and the price per student was around 200 euros. It was the end-of-year trip for the 4th year ESO class of the Perelló institute, a town with less than 3,000 inhabitants in the Baix Ebre region. But it all ended up being a scam that reached 5,000 euros. The travel agency chosen to plan the trip was Viatges Albada Tours, based in L'Ametlla de Mar. Its motto is: "Your trusted travel agency." The owner of the company, a 50-year-old man, ended up arrested last Thursday by the Mossos d'Esquadra for a crime of fraud.

Both companies and public entities will be prohibited from using a mobile number to make commercial calls. The objective of this measure, included in a recently approved ministerial order of the Spanish government, is to avoid identity theft scams that are carried out through calls or SMS.

Maria Jesús Inestrosa, a Nicaraguan refugee, arrived on 11 August in Mataró early in the morning: she had not slept because she had worked all night taking care of an elderly person, but she did not want to miss the opportunity of a better job. Through a Facebook group of migrants looking for work she had received an offer that in such a precarious sector seemed very interesting: 1,200 euros to work as an intern from 7 am to 7 pm in a house taking care of the elderly, with weekends off, overtime and paid holidays. She had sent her CV to the e-mail address indicated in the offer and received an appointment for an interview at ten o'clock in the morning. Little did she know that instead of being given a job she would be the victim, like 22 other migrant women, of a miserable scam.