Alex Trelinski
A scam of selling-off rental and lease vehicles netted a gang over €10 million, according to the Policia Nacional.
82 people, including 33 in Alicante Province and 11 in Murcia, have been arrested.
The criminals organised themselves across Spain operating with six branches in Alicante, Almeria, Jaen, Madrid, Murcia, and Tarragona.
They created bogus companies that contracted leased cars as well as lorries and vans.
Fake documents were created for the vehicles which were then sold off in Spain and across Europe.
The criminal operation started to be investigated in February 2021 when a Romanian man was stopped at the Slovenian border in a car with a forged driving licence.
The vehicle was owned by a Spanish rental company and registered in Murcia.
It had been leased to a company administrator of a firm based in Barcelona.
Not long afterwards, another person tried the same border crossing with bogus documents.
The car also belonged to a Murcia rental company but this time it was contracted out to an Almeria-based firm.
The Policia Nacional were tipped-off and discovered that the drivers had flown into Spain days earlier on one-way tickets, and it was not the first time they had done so.
Most of the stolen cars were sold-off at discount prices to other criminal groups who then sold them onto purchasers who were unaware of the vehicle’s history.
READ MORE:
- Car hire firms defrauded by gang who sub-leased vehicles to criminals in the Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol…
- Costa Blanca conmen resold stolen top range Mini rental cars at Murcia dealership in Spain
