Owner of Costa del Sol car workshop arrested for putting foreign clients' vehicles in his name to sell them
The victims were owners of high-end cars with foreign number plates
The Guardia Civil of Coín, Málaga, has carried out an operation in which a garage worker has been arrested as the alleged perpetrator of six crimes of fraud, four of misappropriation and one of making threats after gaining the trust of his victims to subsequently put the ownership of the vehicles in his name so he could sell them to third parties and keep the money from their sale.
The investigation was initiated following several complaints filed at the Guardia Civil offices in Coín. The complaints all had in common the fact that the victims were foreigners residing in the town who owned high-end vehicles with foreign registration plates.
Every victim had allegedly been defrauded by an individual who ran a company for the purchase and sale of vehicles and a repair shop.
The individual gained the trust of clients, all of them foreigners residing in the Guadalhorce region, by leaving the vehicles in his workshop because they wanted to import the car to register it in Spain.
After some time, when customers asked about the vehicle, this individual told the victims that they had a serious and expensive engine failure, asking them for a large amount of money to repair it.
Once the money for the repair had been collected, in addition to the amount already requested to import the vehicle, this individual carried out the procedure for changing the ownership and the Spanish registration of the vehicle with the DGT, transferring them to his name to later sell them to third parties.
When customers demanded the return of their vehicle and the money paid for it, he invented all kinds of excuses to evade responsibility, even seriously threatening one of them.
Investigators managed to locate four victims who had allegedly been defrauded by this individual using the same modus operandi, who allegedly obtained the money from the sale of their vehicles and the money requested for repairs, valued at more than 200,000 euros.
The Guardia Civil therefore arrested the individual, and he was placed at the disposal of the Court of
First Instance and Instruction on Duty in Coín. The officers managed to recover and return to their legitimate owners all the vehicles that had been the object of the crime.
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Image: Guardia Civil
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