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Couple face jail over 14-month hotel bill

A German couple face jail and a large bill after residing in a Spanish hotel for 14 months without paying, saying they thought they could stay for free while talking about buying the property.

Published: 13 March 2013 07:49 CET

Couple face jail over 14-month hotel bill

Photo: DPA

The 63-year-old Hans W. and his 31-year-old girlfriend Monika U. took up residence in the four-star hotel in the popular tourist town of Pals, supposedly with the intention of buying the €8.2 million building, online newspaper El Confidencial reported.

The two Germans assured the hotel’s owners they were in a sound financial position and ran an audovisual production and distribution company in the United States.

They claimed they were told by hotel management they could stay for free while they negotiated the purchase of the property.

But the sale of the hotel fell through and the hotel owner then demanded that the couple pay for their stay.

A court case began on Monday in the town of Girona, where the pair faced charges of fraud. If convicted they could face four years in prison, a fine of €2,700 and the cost of their stay – €132,000.

The pair stayed at the Hotel Mas Salvi from the 30th of March 2009 to the end of July the following year.

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German police swoop on gang of foreign dating scammers

The Black Axe gang was involved internationally in “multiple areas of criminal activity”, with a focus in Germany on romance scams and money-laundering, Bavarian police said in a statement.

The dating trick was a “modern form of marriage fraud”, police said.

“Using false identities, the fraudsters for example signalled their intention to marry and in the course of further contact repeatedly demand money under various pretexts,” police said.

The money was subsequently transferred to Black Axe in Nigeria “via financial agents”, authorities said.

In the process, the gang used a “commodity-based money laundering” scheme where products, often with a seeming “charitable purpose” were bought and delivered to Nigeria.

Some 450 cases of romance scamming had been reported in the region of Bavaria in 2023 alone, with the damages rising to 5.3 million euros ($5.7 million), police said.

The suspects, who all held Nigerian citizenship and were aged between 29 and 53, were arrested in nationwide raids on Tuesday.

Law enforcement swooped on 19 properties, including both homes and asylum shelters, police said.

The Black Axe gang had “strict hierarchical structures under leadership in Nigeria” operating different territorial units, police said.

The group had a “significant influence” on politics and public administrations, in particular in Nigeria.

Globally, the gang’s main areas of operation were “human-trafficking, fraud, money-laundering, prostitution and drug-trafficking”.

Black Axe operated under the cover of the Neo Black Movement of Africa, an ostensibly charitable organisation used as “camouflage” for the gang’s structures.

The action against Black Axe was the first of its kind in Germany, police said.

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