Owner of Costa del Sol travel agency remanded in custody for allegedly defrauding around 200,000 euros from clients | Sur in English

The owner of the Ymanme travel agency in Torre del Mar has been remanded in custody without the possibility of bail by the judicial courts in Vélez-Málaga regarding an alleged continuous crime of fraud, having defrauded around 200,000 euros from 200 customers in recent months, as SUR has been able to confirm. However, police investigations are still ongoing and it is not ruled out that new victims may continue to come forward.

After being arrested on 8 May by the National Police, the court ordered the woman’s release while investigations took place, however, after a series of new complaints, the police officers investigating the case arrested her again on Monday, as reported by this newspaper. 

Wednesday’s court decision comes after the latest complaints concerning the 51-year-old woman, a resident of Torre del Mar. The amount of the alleged scam has now risen to around 200,000 euros, with more than a hundred new victims who have filed corresponding complaints at the police station in Vélez-Málaga. Police have received these new complaints in the last few days, after several new cases were reported in the media, following the first case in Antequera (in mid-April) of a group of students who were left stranded, unable to travel to England, and who lost 26,975 euros.

Subsequently, it was the parents and teachers of the IES María Zambrano secondary school in the coastal town of the capital of Axarquia who raised the alarm by reporting the alleged scam of another 3,632 euros for a trip to Germany. The group of 18 people concerned had booked a study and exchange trip to Germany for their children valued at a total of 3,632 euros, at a rate of 227 euros per person.

From then on, new complaints have followed, such as that of a group of residents of Vélez-Málaga who have lost more than 64,000 euros for a trip to the Greek islands last October. According to SUR, there are others who have been scammed with cancelled trips to Bordeaux in France, Marrakesh in Morocco and New York, among other international destinations.