The Madrid Provincial Prosecutor’s Office requests four years and six months in prison for a ‘love scammer’, for two consecutive crimes of fraud and theft. The accused posed as a “man of class” to his victims so that they would lend him money or to enter their homes and steal their jewellery. The trial will take place on Tuesday at the Madrid Court.
The indictment states that in 2018 the accused established a friendship with a victim through the social network Badoo and that, “taking advantage of her need for company and posing as a man of status, with money and contacts”, told her that he owned a farm with horses in Seville and that he belonged to the Partido Popular.
With this introduction, the woman agreed to buy the accused’s vehicle for an amount of 5,500 euro. Days later, the man convinced her to give him another 8,500 euro with the promise of returning it to buy a high-end car.
The same day that the woman went to the bank to withdraw the cash that was never returned, the two later met at the victim’s home where the scammer also persuaded her to leave him three watches and a necklace of wild boar horns with the excuse to repair them and where, in addition, he took the opportunity to steal a gold chain with a pendant and two rings from her jewellery box.
The woman managed to recover the chain with a pendant but not the boar horn necklace and two rings. Therefore, the injured party claims the amount of the defrauded money, which amounts to 14,000 euro, but not the amount of the missing jewellery, which could not be expertly appraised.
Almost simultaneously, the accused began a romantic relationship with another victim, whom he made believe that he was “a man of status, with money and contacts,” by identifying himself as a retired Guardia Civil Captain who owned farms, horses and had friends of “high prestige”. Once he gained her trust, he first asked the victim for 3,000 euro to buy some saddles, money that he was forced to return.
Days later he asked for another 3,500 euro for an investment opportunity, money that was lent on the condition that he return it. On June 15, a birthday party was arranged at a hotel in Madrid where a marriage proposal took place. The bill for the event amounted to 2,810 euro, which the woman had to pay “as the accused did not take care of it even though she promised to do so.”
The man also took advantage of the romantic relationship to take a topaz ring that the woman had at her home in Madrid, with the excuse of making a replica, and two gold bracelets to make, as he said, a large medal. Furthermore, since he had keys to the house, he stole a gold ring with rubies and diamonds from a jewellery box.
The woman claims 13,690 euro from the accused, broken down as follows: 3,500 euro for the loan for an investment; 2,810 euro for the amount of the party at which she proposed to him; 5,580 euro for the unreturned jewellery and another 1,800 for the gold and diamond ring stolen from her home.
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