A major gang of fraudsters has been dismantled by the National Police in Palma and so far seven people have been arrested and are in custody.
No less than 24 hours after it was revealed by Spain’s interior ministry that nearly seven people were arrested for corruption charges every day last year, the National Police arrested seven people suspected of being part of an organised criminal gang which has defrauded a leading Palma travel agent out of at least 400,000 euros since 2012. The National Police revealed on Friday that as a result of Operation Matahari, the leader of the gang, a 50-year-old Bulgarian woman, and six other suspects have been arrested on charges of alleged fraud and the falsification of documents.
The Bulgarian was apparently the head accountant for the travel agency and would divert payments to companies belonging to family members of some of the other suspects. The police said the gang operated between early 2012 and January of this year, when the company realised something suspicious was occurring in its accounts department and informed the police. Operation Matahari, according to the police, is still open and more arrests could follow over the coming days.
This case is just one of many over the past year. Although the overall number of people arrested on corruption charges dropped between 2014 and 2015 from 2,743 to 2,442, last year’s figures were still more than six times higher than in 2010 - and mean that nearly seven Spaniards were arrested for corruption for each day of 2015.
About 1,100 corruption cases are still ongoing. Over the past three years, more than 7,000 people have been arrested on corruption allegations.
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