The National Police have arrested a 29-year-old man and two women, ages 30 and 63, in Alicante for stealing about €9,000 from a prisoner at Fontcalent. They lied to the detainee by saying they would let him go on bail. The young man who was detained was the victim’s cellmate. He asked for €8,000 for bail, and the money was sent through a money transfer agency. The people that were arrested were the ones who were supposed to get the items.
A prisoner at Fontcalent told the police at the Central District Police Station in Alicante that his cellmate had cheated him by saying he would help him with his criminal case and that he had contacts that would help him get out of prison.
The person he was talking about was a lawyer who was purportedly talking to the prosecutor in charge of his case. The con artist said that he had consented to be released from prison after paying €8,000 in bail and an extra €1,500 to the lawyer for her services.
This individual told her that the bail payment had already been made to gain her trust and put pressure on her. He gave her documentation of payment of the purported money, which had to be returned to her.
Entry that isn’t true
After showing proof of the supposed deposit, he gave the victim a number and told him that it was the lawyer’s bank account where he should put the money. This made the victim think that the lawyer had given him the bail money to get him out of jail and that it needed to be returned right away, even making several transfers.
He paid 8,750 euros, but he still wasn’t let out of jail. When the inmate figured out it was a hoax and that there was no way to get out of jail, he kept asking his cellmate for the money back. Even though he asked many times, the money was never returned.
The agents’ investigations showed that the accused made up a story about a fake court bail that the victim had to pay to get out of jail. They used this false information to carry out the scam, taking advantage of the victim’s weak position at the time.
Scam
The person who is accused of the scheme utilised fake bank documents, set up transfers that never happened, and said a lawyer was involved.
The alleged perpetrator’s partner’s bank account was used to try to collect the money, but for outside reasons, they were not completed. So, he told the victim to make the payments through a money transfer company, saying that there were administrative problems, in an effort to always look like he was acting legally.
The accused, his girlfriend, and his mother all took the money out in different payments. They were all directly responsible for receiving the money from the victim, which played a major role in the fraud that was being probed.
When the fraud was found out, the accused tried to buy time by sending false transfer receipts to pretend that a reimbursement had happened that never actually happened. To do this, he provided screenshots from a mobile device that showed bank receipts for scheduled transactions that were later cancelled, meaning the money was never actually transferred.
Based on all the information gathered, the police carried out an operation that led to the arrest of the three people who were identified as being involved in the incidents.
After the arrests, police searched the residence of the man and his partner and took a number of items and documents that belonged to the victim. The victim had asked for these things back multiple times, but the individual who was arrested had never done so. The individual who was arrested was hauled before the duty judge in Alicante.
