Alex Trelinski
THE Guardia Civil has arrested three people and are investigating three others over a massive real estate scam.
The agency, Grupo Lorelai, operated out of an office in the Playa Muchavista area of El Campello.
It pocketed at least €5.4 million from 60 clients for luxury homes that were never built or were sold on multiple occasions.
Around €1 million has been refunded and 12 bank accounts used by the fraudsters have been frozen.
All of the people arrested or investigated are French nationals who targeted French-speaking clients.
The Guardia started investigating the business at the end of last year that advertised luxury homes in Busot and the surrounding area.
Two types of fraud was committed by the agency.
Firstly, an already-built property would be sold to multiple buyers.
The second element was to build a house from scratch but the client never got what they paid for.
The Guardia Civil described the gang’s Playa Muchavista office as ‘ostentatious’ with staff driving around in high-end cars- all to give the impression to wealthy customers that they were dealing with a highly reputable business.
All deposits for homes or bogus construction projects were immediately diverted into personal bank accounts of the real agency team, who then made transfers to foreign accounts.
18 people who in theory worked on construction projects for the company have been located and none of them had any legal employment contracts.
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