The High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) has acquitted a man, previously convicted in the Provincial Court of Las Palmas to four years in prison for fraud in the sale of homes, upon finding that the complainant acted with "sloth, disinterest, negligently and clumsily," given that the deception was "crude, gross, or grotesque."
The acquittal is based on the number of times the complainant successively handed over significant amounts of money, totaling 246,000 euros, without receiving anything in return, and that he did so with the lure of acquiring very cheap properties from vulture funds.
The Court recalls that when the victim of fraud does not take the minimum precautions to avoid being deceived, the accused may be acquitted, as they have not induced the affected party to do something they do not want to do.
The ruling states that "neither the purchase materialized, nor was the money returned, and on the contrary, the amounts increased and the scam operations were repeated on six occasions in a year and a half," so according to the TSJC, "any minimally normal person would not have fallen for the deception."
The first ruling also included a fine of 2,400 euros and the obligation to return 146,000 euros to the complainant, to whom he sold five properties, without ever delivering any house or returning the money."It was too much money in too many successive installments and too much time to understand that the whistleblower did not realize he was being deceived," so there could be "interests of another kind" in operations "without any sign of reality," indicates the TSJCThe accused met the complainant at the end of 2020 and, after posing as a highly experienced real estate agent, offered him the sale of a bungalow in the town of El Cotillo for 50,000 euros, for which he received the corresponding transfer.Shortly after, in January 2021, he offered to buy four apartments in Sardina del Sur and asked him to send him 60,000 euros, to which he agreed, as happened in March, when he sent him 46,000 euros to acquire some apartments in Santa Cruz de TenerifeIn June of that year, the complainant gave the accused a check for 48,000 euros, claiming the defendant needed liquidity to buy a house, and then in February 2022, offered him the opportunity to invest 42,000 euros in apartments in Costa Calma, Fuerteventura.
The TSJC reflects that on none of the occasions, despite having received the money, was any sale ever formalized, and only after the announcement of legal action against him did the defendant return 100,000 euros, which allowed for the application of the mitigating circumstance of damage repair.
Despite acknowledging that greed was a factor in the defendant's state of mind, it is also indicated that the victim sought to acquire properties from vulture funds at very low prices.
