Early on Monday morning, a group of fifteen squatters occupied brand new apartments on the calle Emili Darder in Palma. Work on the apartments, four of them, was finished only a matter of days ago.
The developer and the National Police discovered that all the properties had been taken over. Clothes and mattresses had been brought in. There were two dogs. The squatters had swiftly taken up residence.
All the apartments have been sold, purchasers having paid 30% deposits. The sales are due to be completed next week and the keys handed over. Because of this, the developer opted to pay the squatters a "significant sum" in order to get them out. The money was paid and they left, but not before having caused some damage and dirtied the properties. A private security firm is now guarding the apartments.
The police are apparently unable to proceed with an investigation into unlawful seizure of private property. However, they suspect that the squatters are part of an organised criminal gang and will therefore be following this line of investigation for an occurrence which bears the hallmark of a form of extortion.
The developer and the police noted that once the payment had been made and the squatters had abandoned the properties, they drove off in "high-end" cars.
