OLIVE PRESS
The
MALLORCA
FREE
Vol. 5 Issue 124
Your expat
voice in Spain
CELEBRITY HAUNTS: The big names with hotels in Spain...See page 14
www.theolivepress.es February 11th - February 24th 2022
TO LILIBET WITH LOVE IT was a very special day for Queen Elizabeth, and her distant cousin King Felipe was not about to be left out. He and wife Letizia sent their congratulations to Queen Elizabeth II as she celebrated her Platinum Jubilee. It was a warm and affectionate message commemorating the seven decades since Elizabeth’s coronation. “With this message, we would like to join you in celebrating this remarkable anniversary and wish you all the best for the years to come. With much affection,” it read. The Spanish royals are known to have a warm relationship with the British Royal family, calling Queen Elizabeth ‘aunt’ and her
late husband Philip ‘uncle’. The two royal families have close blood links. Queen Elizabeth is the great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, while King Felipe VI is her great-great-great grandson. Romantic ties began when Spain’s King Alfonso made a state visit to Britain in 1905 and met Queen Victoria’s g r a n d d a u g h t e r, Princess Victoria Eugenie. The pair married, the princess becoming Queen Ena of Spain, and their grandson no other than Spain’s former King Juan Carlos I. Juan Carlos I abdicated in 2014 in favour of his son, King Felipe VI. Opinion Page 6
REAL CHARLY A JUDGE has ruled that nine people who led a high-octane lifestyle of sex, booze and pool parties should stand trial over Mallorca’s biggest ever case of property fraud. The accused men are alleged to have led the high life after conning people out of a least €3.3 million by selling ‘off plan’ real estate that was never going to be built. Initial reports suggested that as much as €7 million may have been lost to the gang.
Bogus Prosecutors allege that 235 victims were conned over 32 bogus property promotions in Mallorca between 2015 and 2018 that were run by Promociones Lujo Casa under its Colombian boss Carlos Garcia Roldan, known as Charly.
High life gang finally face the music over Mallorca’s biggest ever property scam By Alex Trelinski & Dilip Kuner
He would entice his victims with attractive real estate projects, asking for a down payment of 10% on homes that were never going to be built. Huge amounts of cash were spent on escorts, restaurants, casinos, vehicles, and jewellery as the alleged fraudsters lived life to the full, allegedly at the expense of their duped clients. Charly would then make continuous excuses about construction delays to deceive his marks. When his first victim came forward to the police about the scam in 2018, Charly fled to Buga in Colombia, dramatically changing his appearance and allegedly undergoing cosmetic surgery in a bid to hide his identity. However, he was finally arrested in 2019
Discover hassle-free currency transfers
147 834 SP18206EN - Front page Ewn adverts v2.indd 4
Portals Nous, 07181, Mallorca.
14/02/2020 23:25
GUILTY: James Berry
Head case
SAME MAN: Garcia Roldan in Mallorca (left) and after his arrest through a joint operation launched Promociones Lujo Casa operated by the Colombian Police and the from an office in Coll d’en RabasGuardia Civil. sa. The fraudulent agency reeled in Holed up inside the home of his potential victims via the internet girlfriend’s grandmother, he was by stealing photos of other people’s extradited back to Spain to stand property promotions and architect trial. images. He and his eight colleagues face money laundering and fraud Victims charges, with the trial set to start They even placed posters and banonce prosecution and defence counsels have presented their cas- ners on some pieces of land that es before Palma’s Investigating did not belong to them as part of the ruse to convince buyers that Court. they were genuine. The 32 bogus promotions hooked at least 235 victims who paid for new homes in Llucmajor, Marratzi, Palma. See pages 16 and The money ended up in Lujo Casa’s bank account and was then laundered via salary payments to fictitious employees.
Tel: 952 147 834 TM
THE headmaster of a British school in Mallorca has been convicted by a Glasgow court of raping two women in Scotland. A jury found James Berry, 77, guilty of five sex charges. The offences occurred between 1963 and 1987. He was arrested by the Guardia Civil in March 2019 and extradited to Scotland on a European Arrest Warrant. Berry is the owner of €13,500-a-year King Richard III College in Portals Nous, near Palma, and had lived on Mallorca for 30 years. He was previously cleared by a Mallorca court over sex abuse allegations brought by a woman in 2016. In 2018, Berry told the Olive Press that the allegations were made in a bid to ‘run him out of the school’ as the woman wanted to take over from him. A court investigation decided that the accusations were false and made in a bid to take over his school. “I lost all sense of time”, explained Berry, who was kept in a police cell for two nights. “I prayed. They were some of the most difficult days of my life.” Numerous parents from the school spoke out in support for him at the time. Continues on page 2