UNINSURED

Rental scammer exposed by Olive Press also sold bogus insurance policies

AN expat who the Olive Press exposed as a holiday rental fraudster also took money for fake insurance policies.

Juliette de Courcy Withey allegedly scammed dozens of expats while working as an agent for one of Spain’s leading insurance companies.

We can reveal how the Malaga-based resident allegedly pocketed thousands of euros she was meant to hand over for insurance policies at Caser Seguros.

De Courcy, from Guaro, scammed clients by selling them invalid house and car insurance policies, having befriended them locally. The expat - who is currently being prosecuted over a bogus

EXCLUSIVE

By Alberto Lejarraga

rental scheme - has allegedly been up to her antics for the last two decades.

“It’s about time she paid for her scams,” Susan Platt, from Liverpool, told the Olive Press this week.

Cash

The 69-year-old revealed she only discovered a villa she rented in Marbella was not insured a year after giving De Courcy €600 in cash.

“She actually cancelled the Liberty policy the very same day she took the money,” she

Was this the spot?

Olive Press exclusive reveals the lake camp where police believe suspect Christian Brueckner brought Madeleine McCann

See Ground Zero on page 2 slammed. “I had no idea it wasn’t valid until a Liberty agent told me she was not working for them and said the policy had been cancelled.”

Another victim from Holland, suffered a similar fate.

The Mother-of-two and her husband based in Guaro, were given ‘official Caser handwritten receipts’ after paying ‘thousands in cash’ for fully comprehensive car insurance over a number of years.

They only discovered their fate when they were involved in a car accident in which the other driver was hospitalised. To their horror they later got a call from the court saying they had to pay €3,000 to the affected party as their vehicle was ‘not insured’. “We could not believe it,” she said. “It was only then we realised we had been driving uninsured for years. And even with two kids in the car!”. She added: “It was a horrible time but when I went to talk to Juliette and demanded she give me €3,000 she said she would sort it all out, but never did.”

Eventually, they took De Courcy to court and, this month, after 10 long years they finally learnt they will be getting their money back.

Under the settlement, De Courcy and husband, David

Withey, were found guilty of ‘misappropriation’ and handed prison sentences, according to Olive Press legal sources.

“While Withey tried to take the blame, the court did not buy it and sentenced both to two years in prison, suspended over the next Meanwhile, two other expats Gill and Glyn Williams, from Kent, recently discovered from Caser that their car had been uninsured for the entire period they had paid De Courcy.

“We were very lucky we had no accidents,” said Gill this week.

Tricked

She also believes there are many other victims including a German friend, who had to move home, plus a Swedish couple. “And there was another British friend of ours who went to claim after an accident only to be told by Caser she was not insured.” De Courcy declined to comment and simply replied ‘goodbye’ and hung up, when called.

While Caser failed to comment, Liberty confirmed Withey had indeed tricked customers.

A spokesman explained she had got away with it as she was collaborating with one of Liberty’s former agents, who was later sacked for ‘embezzling money’.

“It must have been through this collaboration that she had access to our office,” he said.

Sniffed out

A 15-strong gang has been charged with setting up large-scale marijuana farms inside empty properties in Benidorm, Polop, and Finestrat.

Card con

A SAGUNT woman, 25, has been arrested for scamming an elderly female by making €905 of charges on her bank card to book a hotel and flights to Greece which she’d enjoy with her boyfriend.

Lucky escape

A woman, 40, survived being hit by a train as she was crossing a line in Sangunt on Sunday. Rescuers pulled her out from under a carriage and took her to Valencia’s Clinical Hospital.

Frozen out

A WORKER, 46, at an Alzira ice-cream making factory got herself stuck in one of the machines but managed to free herself before fire crews arrived. Her injuries were treated at the local hospital.

Exclusive

IT was his secret camp that he called his ‘little paradise’. Hidden in a copse overlooking Arade lake, this was the Portuguese hideout that Christian Brueckner would come to ‘cleanse himself’ alongside lots of beer and marijuana.

As well as a rudimentary table, hewn out of a log, the Madeleine McCann suspect even sculpted a stone bench down by the water’s edge. But what most intrigued German detectives, who spent 72-hours scouring the area last week, was a perfect stone circle, now dismantled, that was made beside it.

“This was his exact special spot he liked to come to ‘cleanse himself’,” a former friend told the Olive Press on a visit to the reservoir, last year.

“He came here often, but I don’t know exactly what he did as he was always secretive.”

Granada

The Olive Press established he spent long periods by a trio of lakes on the Algarve, as well as Granada’s Alpujarras region, where he sold drugs and stolen items.

The convicted rapist and paedophile particularly liked Arade lake.

“He would drive down to the edge of the lake. He liked to be near the water,” revealed the German mother-of-two, who is a key witness in the case.

“He always camped in the same spot and said he came to ‘cleanse himself’ and he certainly washed himself and his