Fake property lawyer arrested at Malaga airport after €100k Marbella con

A 52-year-old woman posing as a solicitor and property intermediary has been arrested by National Police after allegedly swindling a 43-year-old investor out of €100,000 in cash over a luxury home deal in Marbella.

Police from the specialised UDEF unit at Marbella police station launched their probe after the victim realised he had been taken for a ride. She had presented herself as working with leading estate agents in the town and dangled a rental-with-option-to-buy arrangement on a property in a high-end urbanisation as the bait. After a series of documentary tricks, she apparently persuaded him to hand over two cash deposits: One of €80,000 and one of €20,000, as a reservation fee.

How the con worked

Estate agents themselves fell for her pitch, when she promised to deliver new clients and in return they trusted her enough to hand over keys and allow access to properties. Once the investor’s cash was in her possession she simply vanished with the money.

Investigators later discovered she operated under a made-up identity as a lawyer while also using a second identity belonging to her own sister. She even carried and showed her sister’s passport, banking on their strong physical resemblance to stay one step ahead of police and the courts. A Marbella judge had already ordered her detention for fraud, yet she managed to dodge capture for a while.

Arrest at the airport

Her luck ran out at Malaga airport when police spotted her trying to enter Spain on her sister’s paperwork. Fingerprint checks quickly confirmed her real identity, and now she now faces charges of fraud, identity theft, document forgery, practising as a lawyer without qualification, and tax fraud, as well as the existing court search warrant.

Courts ordered her passport confiscated and then banned her from leaving Spanish territory. Officers say the investigation continues open and they are checking whether she used the same methods on other buyers.

Warning for Costa property buyers

Cases like this keep cropping up on the Costa del Sol. Previous Euro Weekly News reports have detailed similar property traps, including an Austrian couple whose beachfront Marbella home was sold from under them without their knowledge, a seller left €150,000 out of pocket after a fake-cash handover, and cyber units recovering more than €2 million from email interception scams linked to villa sales.

Anyone looking at high-value deals in Marbella or the wider Costa del Sol should insist on dealing only through properly registered lawyers and agents who carry their official IDs, never hand over large cash sums without full independent checks, and verify every document carefully. Lawyers in Spain have to carry their “Colegio de Abogados” identity cards or are not permitted to act in legal situations. National Police continue to call on the public to report any suspicious approaches quickly.