Eagle-eyed Alicante notary picks up on inheritance fraud

DOUBTS: An Alicante notary thought something was amiss with the document and notified the police. CREDIT: Shutterstock

THE eagle eye of an Alicante notary prevented an inheritance from ending up in the hands of fraudsters.
Police made five arrests for falsifying documents to get their hands on up to €350,000 in bank accounts and properties in Madrid and Alicante which had belonged to a German who died two years ago.
The detainees are suspected of falsifying a power of attorney, and specifically a donation notarial protocol from the Spanish embassy in Berlin, in which the deceased gives them their properties in Madrid and Alicante.
It worked to get them the properties in the national capital, which they subsequently passed on to a company to then transfer them to buyers.
In the second phase of the fraud they tried to get to the money the deceased had in several bank accounts. But when they presented the power of attorney which seemed to show their right to the cash to the Alicante notary, the way it was written, the kind of paper used and the stamps set off alarm bells that it could be a fake.
Investigations by the Alicante police provincial financial crime brigade showed this to be the case. The investigation also led to the identification of the suspected fraudsters and to the localisation of the legitimate heirs.
Also, the bank accounts were legally blocked to prevent the suspects from gaining access.

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Written by

Cathy Elelman

Cathy Elelman is the local writer for the Costa de Almeria edition of the Euro Weekly News.

Based in Mojacar for the last 21 years, Cathy is very much part of the local community and is always well and truly up on all the latest news and events going on in this region of Spain.

Her top goals are to do the best job she can informing the local English-speaking community, visitors to the area and the wider world about about the news in Almeria, to learn something new every day, and to embrace very new challenge this fast-changing world brings her way.

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