Fake food poisoning claims by British holidaymakers in Spain down to ‘zero’ in 2019 after fraudsters fined up to €15,000 by UK courts

FAKE claims of food poisoning by Brit tourists on Spanish holidays have fallen dramatically to ‘not a single case’ in 2019.

The false legal actions skyrocketed by 500% in the summer of 2016, when they were estimated to have cost the Spanish hotel industry over €50 million. 

But after British perpetrators received their first convictions last year, the practice has almost disappeared.

“This year the issue has relaxed substantially,” a leading travel agency told Diario Informacion.

In 2018, four members of a family from Liverpool were each condemned to an €800 fine and three months in prison for filing a false claim against Jet2Holidays.

A second successful case saw a ?15,000 fine imposed upon two British tourists for making a fake food poisoning claim against TUI while on holiday in Benidorm.

In both cases, the Brits claimed suffering nausea, stomach pain, diarrhea and vomiting for days, and even falsified medical reports. 

But the publication of photos on social media in the latter case, showing the perpetrators enjoying themselves, led to the retaliatory sentence. 

In one of the cases, the judge said: “I cannot accept the uploading of photographs as a happy couple if the holidays were as they say.”

Spanish hotel association Hosbec intially flagged up the claims to the British government after tourists began claiming up to €50,000 for food poisoning.

The legal crackdown, however, has come after a change in laws regulating the claims.