Guardia Civil to have special “property fraud” teams

Joan Collins THE director general of the Guardia Civil, Joan Mesquida, confirmed yesterday that the Force is already working on the creation of special teams using advanced technology to combat “low level property fraud”, and which he was confident would be in place “as soon as possible”. Mesquida explained that the setting up of these special teams is an attempt to help citizens who complain to the Guardia Civil about property fraud. He said they would be “using advanced technology and judicial guarantees to investigate and arrest those responsible”. After the development of “Operation Malaya” to combat the alleged property fraud plot in Marbella council, for which ex-Mayors Julian Muñoz and Marisol Yague are facing charges, Mesquida considered that citizens were thinking “they got very rich during the amount of time the investigation took”. Nevertheless, the head of the Guardia Civil warned that there is also “a crime of low level property fraud related to major property fraud which is not being given the level of investigative attention that it merits”. He explained that when a complaint of fraud of this type is made, it is almost always made by a person, councillor or businessperson who carries a hidden tape recorder to try to expose the existence of the crime. Because of this, his intention as head of the Guardia Civil is that these crimes should be reported to the Guardia Civil to investigate. Mesquida said that the Force is already working to start very soon “the training which these teams must have, so that they have knowledge of property and the investigation of personal finances”. On the other hand, the head of the Guardia Civil recognised the necessity to improve the Guardia Civil's infrastructures, their facilities and the cells in which they hold prisoners, which at the moment “is not up to the level” of the prestige of this Force.