Five defendants face sentences of up to 8 years in prison for having committed up to 14 scams against various financial institutions in Lanzarote, in just 6 months. Supposedly, between April and September 2011, the defendants dedicated themselves to buying mainly vehicles and also other objects, for which they requested bank loans providing false documentation. Once the loan was obtained, they sold the product they had acquired and never paid what they owed. With this method, they managed to obtain more than 300,000 euros that the entities have never recovered. The Provincial Court will judge them next week in Arrecife.
All of them were allegedly directed by the main defendant, I.R.M. For this man, who has been in provisional prison since September 2011, the Prosecutor's Office is asking for 10 years and 6 months in prison and fines amounting to 13,680 euros. He is accused not only of a continued crime of falsification of a commercial document in relation to another continued crime of qualified fraud, but also of three more charges. The first of them is a crime against road safety, since he was caught driving one of those vehicles exceeding the speed limit and without a license. In addition, he faces two charges of obstruction, as he intimidated two of the other defendants so that they would not report him after his arrest.
"Concerted" in a "fraudulent strategy"
To get the money from those 14 scams, the defendants, led by I.R.M, would have developed a real network. Regarding the main defendant, who participated in all the scams, the Prosecutor's Office considers that he "carried out a multiplicity of acts of buying and selling vehicles, appliances and household furniture" for which, "according to a strategy of a fraudulent nature previously devised" and "in order to obtain an illicit patrimonial benefit", he requested loans to make those purchases "knowing that in none of the cases" he would return the money. Afterwards, I.R.M. sold those products to third parties, "in exchange for cash that he incorporated into his assets in a short period of time after the purchase and before the entities could register their reservation of ownership."
This man, who had already been convicted a year earlier for falsification of a commercial document, used documentation that he previously falsified for his transactions and used it "for the execution of his criminal plan to various people in his environment who cooperated with him" in the falsification, in the purchases and in the request for loans. This is where his henchmen, also accused, came into play.
Up to 4 times, I.R.M. made purchases of vehicles through a friend, who is wanted by the justice system and is not part of the defendants in the case. She was the one who signed the documents for the purchase of the cars and the loan agreements with the entities; and she did it with false documents, "knowing" that they were, that I.R.M. provided her. Thus, she provided false telephone bills, a fraudulent certificate of registration in Yaiza (and which was in fact used in all the operations included in the case) and even fictitious payrolls in her name as an employee of a company in Playa Blanca. These payrolls were provided by J.A.R.V., representative of the company and also accused in the case.
Workers from two dealerships involved
On later occasions, always according to the Prosecutor's Office, it was through another of the defendants, M.M.D., from whom I.R.M. made the purchases and loans. In addition, on two occasions, M.M.D. "simulatedly" sold the vehicle to his wife, who in turn sold it to a dealership and received the money in cash, which ended up in the hands of the 'ringleader', I.R.M. The prosecutor has asked that the indictment of this woman be dismissed, considering that "there are no elements that allow to prove that she knew that she was cooperating or covering up the illicit origin of the vehicles, nor of the documentation", or that it was not intended to pay the loans.
The false payrolls to M.M.D. were provided by another of the defendants, U.M.D., who was an employee of one of the dealerships where they acquired the vehicles. In addition, U.M.D. also collaborated in other ways in the scams of the ringleader. He, posing as another person and providing false documentation, went to the dealership on two occasions to buy a motorcycle. I.R.M. never got the vehicle because the purchase was not carried out, but U.M.D. - after paying 125 euros in one case and 200 in another - gave him the money he had requested in loan, even knowing that he would not return it.
The last defendant, the only one who, like I.R.M., is accused of a continued crime of qualified fraud, is J.L.R.M. This man was also an employee of one of the dealerships and the prosecutor is asking for 4 years and 3 months in prison for him, as well as a fine of almost 5,000 euros. In his case, according to the Prosecutor's Office, he managed the sale of the vehicle in the dealership where he worked and the negotiation of the loan on 4 occasions, "knowing" that the documentation was false and that "the vehicle would not be paid to the financial institution by any of the defendants."
The three defendants U.MD., M.M.D and J.A.R.V. face sentences of between 2 years and 8 months and 2 years and 11 months in prison for a continued crime of falsification of a commercial document in relation to another continued crime of fraud. For all of them, the prosecutor also asks for fines ranging from 2,400 to 3,600 euros. He also requests that the five defendants pay a total of 236,885 euros to the entities they allegedly defrauded, as civil liability.
