PROPERTY SEARCH

Date Published: 27/01/2023

ARCHIVED - Gut feeling: British siblings arrested for multi-million euro food scam in Mallorca

ARCHIVED ARTICLE -

Five other Britons have also been collared for the tourist scam in Spain

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Gut feeling: British siblings arrested for multi-million euro food scam in Mallorca

Brother and sister duo Laura Holmes Cameron and her brother Marc Cameron Grimstead, along with five other UK nationals, are facing lengthy prison sentences in Spain for a multi-million euro food poisoning scam.

According to prosecutors, the siblings were the ringleaders of a gang that convinced tourists at all-inclusive resorts in Mallorca to file false food-poisoning claims once they returned to the UK.

Five other Brits living in Spain have been accused of spearheading the scam as well as a UK-based businessman who processed the bogus claims.

The suspects have been named as: Ryan Bridges; Simon Robert Flanagan; Tegan Jewel Sumerlee; Susan Amanda Lyle, Nicola Marie Sanderson; and Peter Carl Murphy.

Through their company Elite Project Marketing SL, the Essex-born pair are accused of hiring the other Britons and paying them hefty commissions to to “go to hotels and get tourists’ personal details,” the court heard.

“This would enable the consumption of meals in hotels to be linked to supposed food poisoning.”

Laura, 42, was arrested in September 2017 while heavily pregnant with the other fraudsters and stands accused of crimes of fraud and membership of a criminal gang. Investigators believe the operation scammed three hotel groups out of more than 10 million euros between 2016 and 2017. If convicted, they face at least eight years behind bars.

During her first court appearance in May 2018, lawyer Gabriel Llado admitted that mum Laura had obtained the names and personal details of holidaymakers and had passed these on to the UK firm, but simply as part of a market research exercise. However, judge Maria Perez Ruiz rejected a plea for dismissal, claiming that “several indications of criminality existed.”

The suspects are now waiting for their Spanish trial date to be set.

In other news: Effigy of Real Madrid player hanging from bridge sparks investigation ahead of Copa del Rey derby

Image: Guardia Civil

Sign up for the Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin and get an email with all the week’s news straight to your inbox

Special offer: Subscribe now for 25% off (36.95 euros for 48 Bulletins)