Walter Finch
A BRITISH tourist was dramatically arrested just as he was boarding a flight back to the UK at Malaga airport accused of faking the theft of his luxury watch.
The 26-year-old had reported to police in Fuengirola that he and his girlfriend, 25, had been drugged during a night out and he had woken up with his €11,000 wristwatch missing.
The couple made the police report over a day later and then prepared to depart the country.
But clues in their complaint tipped detectives off that something was not right.
Discrepancies and lack of detail in the complaint raised suspicions that it could be a case of insurance fraud.
The man claimed that, after hitting the town in Fuengirola, he woke up disoriented on a bench in Benalmadena without his prized possession in the early morning of October 16th.
The woman told police she had made it back to their hotel very groggy, only to realise her phone was missing – though her watch remained on her wrist.
They stated that they believed they were the victims of robbery through being drugged.
Conveniently, because of this, they could not provide much detail in their report.
“We found it very suspicious from the start,” a police spokesperson told the Olive Press.
“There were so many tell-tale clues. Usually people go to the police straight away if they’ve had something so valuable stolen.
“But these two waited until they were just about to leave the country.
“Sadly, this kind of thing happens all the time,” the spokesperson continued.
“People drink too much, black out, lose something and claim they were drugged and robbed in order to claim the insurance money.”
Police intercepted the man at the luggage check-in area moments before his flight.
When they inspected his luggage, they found the watch he had reported stolen there among his clothes.
The man was arrested on the spot and faces charges of filing a false police report.
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