The National Police have arrested a man in Barcelona for fraudulently selling fake appointments for immigration procedures, posing as the head of an administrative management office. The detainee is subject to several judicial warrants from courts across Spain. The testimony of the victims has made it possible to establish the same modus operandi: all of them had found a phone number advertised on various social networks as belonging to an alleged management office specialized in obtaining prior appointments to renew residence permits in Spanish territory. The victims did not discover the fraud until they went to the police, according to a statement released this Monday by the National Police.
In this specific case, the detainee offered these prior appointments for the renewal of residence authorizations, which turned out to be fake, to foreigners in a situation of special vulnerability. After establishing contact through the WhatsApp application, the detainee, posing as the head of this management office, sent the victims falsified documents confirming appointments, as well as the details of a bank account where they had to make the corresponding payment for these procedures.
For each supposed procedure to obtain the appointment, the suspect demanded a payment of 67.50 euros, an amount that the victims deposited into the provided bank account. Additionally, on some occasions, once the payment was made, the man told the victims that he had not received the transfer, citing alleged banking issues, so the defrauded individuals made new payments for the same procedure.
When the victims discovered that the provided appointments were invalid and requested a refund of the money paid, the perpetrator sent them a supposed bank transfer receipt with which he simulated having made the reimbursement of the amounts received.
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In this way, he tried to make them believe that the refund had been ordered, delaying or avoiding claims from the victims.
The police action has allowed the location and arrest of the suspect, who had numerous judicial warrants issued by different courts throughout the country for fraud crimes, as well as for other causes. In this case, the detainee is accused of fraud and document falsification crimes.
