The Prosecutor’s Office requests sentences of up to nine years in prison for ten accused of forming a criminal group dedicated to renting homes in Barcelona for later convert them into tourist apartments or shared apartmentswhile they stopped paying the landlords and prevented them from accessing them.
In a trial that began this Monday in the seventh section of the Barcelona Court, which has been moved to hold this oral hearing to a room in the City of Justicethe public ministry requests prison sentences for each of them that range between three and a half years and nine years in prison.
The prosecutor accuses the ten defendants of various crimes, such as membership in a criminal group, fraud, falsity in a commercial document, extortion or coercion, and waits for the execution of the sentence to set the amount of compensation intended to compensate the homeowners.
However, the sum of the damages generated both by the monthly payments not paid to the owners and by the damage caused by the works on the properties that were later used as tourist apartments or shared apartments provisionally exceeds 600,000 euros.
According to the indictment, the ten defendants, between 2017 and 2020, They rented several apartments in the Catalan capital with false documentation to prove supposed financial solvency and, once in their possession, they began to carry out works without permission or knowledge of the landlords.
The public ministry maintains that, having paid in some cases only the bail and the first or second monthly payment, They stopped paying the corresponding amounts to the owners, who also could not access their homes as they had been occupied by subtenants.
The group of defendants, the letter continues, began to advertise the homes on the Airbnb page, as well as on other well-known real estate websites, despite the fact that they did not have the license necessary to carry out the tourist accommodation activity.
The defendants created “a climate of terror and fear among the owners”, to intimidate them when they came to the house alerted by the neighbors, who informed them of a high number of people entering and leaving the apartment, with the inconvenience that this generated, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
According to the public prosecution, when the defendants saw the owners through video surveillance cameras that they had installed on the doors of the homes, showed up at the property and threatened them, either with harming them or with calling the police forces.
The Prosecutor’s Office places a father and his son as leaders of the alleged criminal group, accused of manage the rental of properties from a commercial company, and were in charge of giving instructions to the rest of the defendants.
#Ten #accused #renting #flats #Barcelona #convert #tourist #apartments #Prosecutors #Office #requests #years #prison
