Orange scams cleared up
GUARDIA Civil rural crime teams (ROCA) in Torrevieja and Calpe have given details of two cases in which farmers fell victim to crimes that involved 61 tonnes and 72 tonnes of oranges respectively.
The case in Calpe concerns fruit stolen from farms being passed off as legitimate by falsifying the legally required document which traces where produce has come from (DATA), explained a spokesman for the force.
The investigation began in June 2019 and the suspects were questioned between January and March this year.
A total of 17 people are being investigated, 13 men and four women of Spanish, Moroccan and Romanian nationalities, in connection with 113 of these falsified
DATA documents. The suspects are accused of 17 counts of falsifying private documentation and 18 of receiving stolen goods. The investiMeanwhile, gation was so successful that crimes affecting the citrus harvest dropped by 50% compared to the two previous years, noted the spokesman.
the Torrevieja case concerned the owner of a company in Guadassuar (Valencia) who was separately accused by three farmers from the Vega Baja area of not paying a total of €26,085 for 61,700 kilograms of oranges.
The suspect started with small orders, paying with post-dated cheques until the farmers trusted him, then he placed larger orders but the cheques bounced for which they also had to pay additional charges.
Officers found that the company had disappeared and been replaced with a completely different one but they managed to locate the suspect, a Spaniard aged 57 in Valldigna (Valencia), where he was arrested and released after making a statement.