The renowned chef Jordi Roca has publicly denounced the identity theft of ‘El Celler de Can Roca’ (Girona), through a video on his official Instagram account. It is not the first time. This statement adds to the official communication issued by the restaurant itself on May 5, which warned precisely about the existence of a website that, posing as the establishment, offered reservations in exchange for advance payments.
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“We do not require any payment to make reservations,” clarified the pastry chef. Likewise, he asked for “maximum dissemination” and assured that it is not the first time this website acts fraudulently, as “every time we report it, they reopen it.”
A recurring problem in the sector
Besides El Celler de Can Roca, in recent months some of the most well-known fine dining restaurants in Spain have also been victims of this type of scam, such as ‘Azurmendi’ (Larrabetzu, Vizcaya), ‘Disfrutar’ (Barcelona), ‘Arzak’ (San Sebastián), ‘Asador Etxebarri’ (Axpe, Vizcaya) and DiverXo (Madrid).
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In most cases, the modus operandi is repeated: these are websites created by cybercriminals that clone the design of the original restaurant’s site, keep the name but under a different domain — for example, ‘.info’ — and pay for advertising on the Internet to appear among the top search results, even above their victims.
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