Sixty Spanish arrests over 'boiler-room' investment rackets which cost British pensioners millions
Sunday, March 2, 2014 @ 5:01 PM
ABOUT 850 British nationals have lost hundreds of thousands of euros each thanks to so-called 'boiler-room' investments in Spain, as a result of which over 60 people have been arrested this week.
The total amount defrauded out of investors is said be in region of 18 million euros.
Most of the victims were pensioners and were targeted with 'very aggressive telesales techniques', convincing them to buy stockmarket-based investment products which did not exist.
London police chief Steve Head said 'hundreds of people's lives have been devastated' by the loss of their life's savings after being talked into 'investing', when in fact they were merely handing over their money to fraudsters.
Of the 50 people arrested in Málaga, Barcelona and Madrid – most of whom are non-Spanish – 11 have been remanded in custody 'indefinitely', 12 released without charges and one on bail, and the fate of the rest will be decided this coming week.
Spanish and British police worked closely together and with authorities in the USA and Serbia and say the arrests came after two years of investigations.
The victims are mainly British, but some are from the USA, and the callers who targeted them claimed to be brokers from an investment management firm based outside the UK – in order to avoid being asked about, or subject to the control of the Financial Services Authority in Britain which has to approve and license any financial services or investment management activity.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com