SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 30. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The National Police has arrested seven members of a criminal organization on the island of Tenerife who swindled more than 175,000 euros from financial entities. The investigation began in early 2021, when the National Police received multiple complaints from these entities that claimed to have been defrauded in the financing of consumer products.
The loans were granted based on false documents and, once the product had been withdrawn, the debt was not paid off. The scams, apparently, were committed by an organized group, whose members accompanied a person without resources, who was provided with false documents to request financing for the product in question: vehicles, smartphones or appliances.
As soon as the financing was granted, a prominent member of the organization removed the product and sold it on the second-hand circuit at a price much lower than the real one. In total, the agents estimate that the damage caused by these scams reaches the figure of 175,000 euros.
This modus operandi was not strange to the researchers, since in 2017 a group dedicated to committing fraud had been dismantled by this same procedure. The investigation revealed that two members of this group, once their sentence had been served, had reorganized themselves, resuming their illicit activities.
The investigators arrested seven people for the alleged responsibility of the crimes of belonging to a criminal organization and fraud and, through their request, several current accounts used by the organization with a positive balance of more than 15,000 euros were blocked.
After being brought to justice, two of the detainees, two men aged 35 and 41 considered the main suspects, were placed in preventive detention. The actions were carried out by national police officers from the Provincial Police Station of the National Police of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
