A 91-YEAR-OLD expat in Calpe was coerced and manipulated by three fellow Brits who duped her into changing her will.
The Guardia Civil have arrested two men aged 64 and 67 years plus a 62-year-old woman.
They have been charged with aggravated fraud, coercion, disclosure of secrets, harassment and membership of a criminal group.
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The Guardia said the elderly victim was subjected to sustained isolation, control and manipulation by the trio so that they could get hold of her money.
She was allegedly chosen because she lived alone and had significant assets.
A Denia court bailed the trio but on the strict condition they make no contact with the woman.
The investigation, codenamed Operation Confide, was launched after a complaint by the victim’s children.
They said she was suffering ‘progressive isolation’ and undue influence at the hands of a number of people.
The Guardia Civil probe uncovered a plan used to progressively exert more control on her- aimed at getting her access to all her assets.
The first part of the plan was to physically isolate her with her family living in the United Kingdom.
The locks of her home were changed, her passport taken away, and phone contact blocked to her family and friends.
The plot even involved installing a video security camera at the front door to control the visitors she received.
All of the victim’s bank and personal correspondence was redirected to a different mailbox controlled by the trio to prevent her accessing any information about her financial affairs.
In just a few months, the detainees regularly accompanied the woman to different bank branches to make periodic cash withdrawals, totalling around €20,000.
That caught the attention of her family back home, since all her bills were paid by direct debit and therefore substantial withdrawals were not needed.
The next stage of the plan was to get the victim to change the beneficiaries of her will to name the men and woman who had been ‘helping’ her.
They tricked her, because of her cognitive impairment, into believing that she was signing an acceptance of an inheritance from her late husband.
Due to her wealth based in the UK, the Guardia reported that an attempt was made to even move her out of Spain to continue exerting more control and to more easily dispose of her assets.
On entering the woman’s Calpe home, officers discovered that further control mechanisms were used.
This included the exploiters putting photos of them around the property so that the woman would be tricked into creating a false emotional bond with them.
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