If any of the three men appearing on this page sound familiar, crossed paths with one and approached you to ask for money claiming they had been robbed, know that if you were suspicious, you avoided being scammed. The Mossos d’Esquadra have arrested two men and are searching for a third, accused of scamming dozens of people who, in good faith, lent them money believing they were in trouble and had no cash to return to their country. The victims number over twenty, and the police suspect there are many more who fell for it.
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All three are Irish, or so they claim, aged between 19 and 35 years, and only one, the one in the middle of the three images, has not yet been identified. The police suspect that the two arrested, one in May and the other last Tuesday, are family.
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Last summer, the police began receiving reports of a scam with the same modus operandi. A young, good-looking, kind man speaking English would approach his victim and desperately assure them that he had been robbed of everything. He needed to return to his country, Ireland, and had no money. With excellent manners, he managed to convince his interlocutor to first make a transfer of the money he needed.
The criminal pretended to have made a transfer and showed the receipt to the victim, whom he accompanied to an ATM to withdraw the money. The man was infinitely grateful for the gesture of solidarity, said goodbye, and fled in a hurry.
Some of the victims, by some last-minute sixth sense, secretly photographed the young man and even the vehicle he left in. Images they provided in the complaints they filed with the Mossos when they realized they had been deceived and that the transfer was fake.
As the investigators accumulated complaints with the same pattern, they managed to arrest one of the suspects in May. Martin Joseph S., 31 years old. He was charged with eight counts of fraud, brought before a judge, and released.
But complaints about the same scam procedure continued, with one detail: the victims gave different descriptions of the perpetrator. The police from the investigation unit of the Eixample district verified that several people were carrying out the same deception.
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Last Tuesday, they arrested the second suspect, the youngest, 19 years old. In his case, he was not only identified by some of the victims but had also been photographed by them. After being arrested, he provided a false identity. But after checking his fingerprints, they confirmed his true identity and discovered he had the same last names as the one arrested in May. Investigators suspect they are family.
Last Friday, he was brought before a judge accused of scamming eight people. He approached his victims around the Sants station and in the Eixample, managing to steal 13,000 euros.
This time, the prosecutor requested as a precautionary measure the withdrawal of his passport and a ban on leaving Spain. But the investigators suspected that as soon as he left the court, he would try to flee. They set up a surveillance operation on the rented red Audi with British plates that he got into as soon as he was released. He filled the gas tank and headed for the highway towards France. The police followed him closely and had alerted their colleagues in La Jonquera. But luck was on the suspect’s side. A few kilometers before the border, a tire blew out. The suspect sensed he was being followed, abandoned the car at a service area, and fled.
The Mossos arrested one in May, the other last Tuesday, and a third suspect remains unidentified
A third scammer, also identified by the victims, still needs to be identified. Investigators have reasons to believe that the three suspects have managed to leave Spain. They had been operating the same scam for years.
The Mossos have made a public call for people to be suspicious of such requests, no matter how trustworthy the person approaching may seem. Besides these three individuals, they suspect there are more who could be from the same family carrying out the same scam in Barcelona and surrounding areas.
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