A man residing in Orihuela has been misled by some bogus buyers in Tolouse (France) when he was about to sell a property.
The victim and his partner travelled to France with 250.000 euros in large denominations to be handed to some, Italian accent sounding buyers. The sale deal did include handing over 250.000 euros in small notes to the sellers by the bogus buyers, which would return the amount plus 25.000 euros more (all in 500 euros notes), as commission, to complete this money laundering”.
The victim did confirm this version to the Policia Nacional and related all the details about the meeting in a Tolouse Hotel, including a wine pack received from the bogus buyers as a gift . He also informed, he, in fact, did have the 275.000 euros in his hands but the buyers finally changed the 500 euro large notes for fake ones to wave goodbye immediately and disappeared.
This timo de la estampita” is a fraud well known in Spain. It is an offence, punished by our Código Penal in articles 248 -251. These articles have been recently revised with the new Código Penal amendment and for this particular case, with a 250.000 euro fraud, the penalty would be considered as an aggravated offence which means a higher penalty : 4 up to 8 years prison penalty.
This distinction is going beyond former considerations in the Código Penal, when the standard penalty was 1-6 years imprisonment for a very wide range of money sum frauds (from 50.000 euros up to millions of euros, the penalty was the same).
Ignacio Ganga – Lawyer & Barrister at Alicante Solicitors > Raymundo & Hopman.
Actio Legis 