Barcelona tries to put the kings of illegal pensions in jail

The Barcelona City Council is developing a new strategy to stop the group dedicated to the most active illegal tourist accommodation in the city. The idea is to obtain prison sentences against those responsible. They are the Peruvian Swedes, the kings of clandestine boarding houses. This network basically rents large apartments to divide them into rooms and sublet them through platforms systematically until the owners manage to evict them. Lately, their supposed leaders are not so calm.

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Municipal inspectors add that at this moment this group controls at least 66 apartments, mainly in Ciutat Vella and the Eixample. And that in the last two decades, at some point or another, they had up to 220. It is a multimillion-dollar business. The City Council’s sanctions never intimidated them. The Peruvian Swedes are very meticulous. Some front men rent the apartments and sublet them to others who channel the guests’ payments through commercial companies. Meanwhile, the hosts post the ads on the platforms and manage the bookings. Inspectors have been unraveling this network for years to show that the detected accommodations are not isolated cases, but constitute an entire network.

The crown jewel of the kings of clandestine boarding houses has always been three apartments in a building on Canuda Street, in the Gothic Quarter. Municipal inspectors detail that they rented the first one in 2017. Then they divided it into several rooms with at least a couple of beds each. The group was still taking its first steps. Seeing that some of its members were Peruvians with Swedish passports, the inspectors gave them this nickname. In 2022, after the contract ended, with other front men, they rented this apartment again. Very few illegal tourist apartments have such a history. Inspectors still have it highlighted in their lists of active irregular accommodations. And in 2023 these multiple offenders also took over the main first and main second apartments, where they also set up several rooms. The owner reported it, but his determination is not like that of the owner of a home and an office on Cucurulla Street, also in the Gothic Quarter.

The woes of this owner illustrate the tricks of the kings of clandestine boarding houses. In August 2021, he rented them to a Swede, apparently an expat. He is actually a ghost tenant, an administrative firewall, on whom the City Council’s fines fall. Then this owner saw that his properties became a clandestine boarding house. His ghost tenant paid for many months, and when everything became strained, another front man whose name also appears in other rental contracts linked to this group took over the payments. In June 2024, he stopped making them. The owner recovered his properties in October 2024, after spending 9,000 euros on lawyers, detectives, attorneys… And on top of that, they left him owing 4,000 euros.

Apparently, this group is led by two Peruvian brothers, but its structure is not entirely pyramidal. Some members get savvy and set up their own operations. Meanwhile, others see fines falling on them. Hence, after so many years, the kings of clandestine boarding houses have left behind many outraged owners, fed-up neighbors… and also many resentful collaborators.

Some people involved in this network in different ways estimate that in 2024 and 2025 the income generated solely by the Canuda operation could have amounted to nearly 1,400,000 euros. The infographic above is made with these calculations. These are indicative figures that mainly show how lucrative these activities can be. Inspectors add that this group also set up another operation in a building on Regomir Street, also in the Gothic Quarter, where they also took over three apartments. According to some of the people involved, the income generated by these apartments in recent years could approach 900,000 euros.

But these people involved in this network, very protective of their anonymity, only refer to the activities of 24 properties between 2019 and 2025. Then these sublets could have generated income of about ten million. Inspectors know that all these apartments were used as illegal tourist accommodations, and they suspect that at least eleven may still be active. Inspectors add that from time to time these activities become intermittent.

Supposed members of this group already have about 190 files and 170 sanctioning procedures, and also more than seven million euros in fines. Some front men face amounts of 800,000 euros, and others 80,000. These are procedures at different stages. But when the Municipal Tax Institute looks for seizable assets of these people, it finds nothing. Where is the money?

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At the end of the year, La Vanguardia gathered indications that part of it could be in Latvia. In 2023, two of these front men rented an apartment on Via Laietana. One of the trusted collaborators of the two brothers who supposedly lead the group appears in the contract as a joint guarantor. Then this collaborator signed the sublease of the apartment to exploit it touristically in the name of a company whose proxy was one of the two brothers in question. This company, theoretically dedicated to managing sports facilities, recorded more than one and a half million euros in sales in 2023. At the beginning of 2025, inspectors opened a sanctioning file against one of the front men who signed the rental of this apartment. Meanwhile, this company makes deposits into an account in Latvia of one of the two brothers, of 85,000 euros, 70,000, 50,000, and 15,000 just in 2024.

In the end, inspectors got tired of issuing fines that led nowhere. At the end of 2024, they sent dossiers about the kings of clandestine boarding houses and the Russians posing as expats to the Prosecutor’s Office and the Catalonia Tax Agency. These are thousands of pages resulting from ten years of investigations, linking front men and apartments following the money trail. The goal is to obtain prison sentences and eradicate these practices from the city. With these dossiers, the Mossos d’Esquadra prosecution department prepared a case to prove in the criminal court that the activities of these groups are more than administrative infractions, that they constitute typified crimes. Inspectors highlight that last year these cases passed the police filter and finally started the processing of criminal proceedings. Then the City Council decided to appear as a private prosecutor.

Also around that time, several owners who rented their properties to the Peruvian Swedes filed criminal complaints as they understand they were victims of an aggravated continuous fraud crime that caused them economic harm. Additionally, this summer a very elaborate anonymous complaint to the Catalonia Tax Agency was transferred to the State Tax Administration Agency.

This new strategy is already bearing its first fruits. Recently, the Prosecutor’s Office already charged five alleged members of the gang of Russians posing as expats. They are accused of aggravated continuous fraud and belonging to a criminal group. The individuals who reported the Peruvian Swedes celebrate that the investigation against them also started. In fact, some of these individuals add, some of the alleged members of this organization were already summoned last year, although the session was postponed. Internal problems of the court in question are delaying this investigation. These owners, however, are satisfied with the Prosecutor’s Office’s steps.

“Now the two brothers in charge are really getting nervous,” say people involved in different ways in this network. “Now they are getting tax agency requests and everything, they are asking for papers!” “They always told you to sign calmly, that all this is legal, that nothing will happen to you, that no one goes to jail for renting rooms to tourists…” “One of the brothers is still here, in his apartment in Barceloneta, one they have that is amazing… I have seen him leaning on the balcony…” “And the other is in Latvia, for a long time, because he had a woman there and because he is afraid to come to Barcelona.” “And when his flight comes, it never lands in Barcelona, but somewhere else, and then he comes another way.” “That Russian friend of his was also in Latvia, but I think he left. Now I don’t know where he is.” “Some now want to get out of the way, disappear.”