HARD TO STOMACH

Brits who ‘scammed’ hotels with hundreds of fake legal food poisoning claims to finally face trial

A GANG of British expats are to go on trial for defrauding dozens of hotels and travel companies in a fake sickness scam totalling ‘up to €40 million’.

The Mallorca group are accused of fraud and racketeering over the creation of hundreds of bogus sick notes between 2016 and 2017.

Palma Court Judge Maria Perez claims the ‘organised gang’ of eight persuaded holidaymakers to report food poisoning incidents during their holidays in order to get compensation from hotels and tour operators later. The fraud is estimated to have cost the Mallorca hotel sector an estimated €40 million in 2016 alone.

Four homes and two businesses in Portals Nous, San Agustin and Bendinat were raided in September 2017 after a four-month investigation.

It came after Alcudia hotel bosses filed complaints with police claiming they were being wrongly blamed for incidents that never happened.

The alleged ring-leaders are Laura Holmes Cameron - previously reported as Laura Joyce, her married name - and her brother Marc Cameron.

The Camerons are accused of paying a team of expats €50 a day to pad the streets enlisting people for the scam.

They also hired a team of club promoters to double up as middle-men under their company Elite Project

By Alex Trelinski

Marketing.

A bonus payment - based on the cash received from the fake claims - would later be paid to the expats, known as OPCs or ‘Outside People Catchers’ in the timeshare industry.

The Palma court heard at a previous hearing how the OPCs were hired to linger outside hotels informing guests of big cash payouts for of faking stomach problems. One testified in 2018 that over an eight-month period he brought in around 40 clients per week from all-inclusive resorts.

Defrauded

Laura Cameron is believed to have directed the operation on the island, which saw some 60% of the 800 false sickness claims handed over to UK companies in 2017. Judge Perez admitted this week that the final defrauded sum has yet to be calculated by prosecutors. But she insisted the amount netted by the gang was ‘significantly above €200,000’.

In a damning statement, the judge insisted most of those claiming serious illness from food poisoning never asked for medical assistance.

In one case at Club Mac Alcudia only 38 out of 800 guests issuing claims had sought a doctor.

As the Olive Press revealed at the time of her arrest, Cameron lived in a stunning €3 million villa near footballer Jamie Redknapp’s former house in Bendinat. We reported that she previously ran a sleazy sex tours company and owned the infamous bar Playhouse, which gained infamy when an English tourist was filmed performing a sex act on 24 men for a cocktail. She closed the bar after being fined heavily when a video of the incident went viral.

Cameron’s mother, Deborah - who hired a leading lawyer famous for securing the acquittal of King Felipe’s sister Cristina over alleged tax evasion - was also arrested, but charges were dropped the following year.

The glamorous mother and daughter were well-known on the island, leading a luxurious and high-profile lifestyle.

At the time of their arrests many expats insisted they were ‘not guilty’ telling the Olive Press of their ‘shock’ at the accusations.

“Debbie is very religious and does a lot of work with charities,” said one. The others being prosecuted are Peter Murphy, Ryan Bridge, Susan Lyle, Simon Flanagan, Tegan Sumerlee, and Nicola Sanderson. They all deny wrong-doing.

Bridge is said to be ‘one of the people tasked in England with processing the false claims’ working with a series of shady Manchester-based law firms.

Trail

Charges against four people have been dropped because they have not been questioned or cannot be located. Lawyers acting for the alleged ring-leaders and their associates failed to get their charges dismissed and a trial is expected to be held at some point this year.

Private prosecutors acting for the affected hotels will also be allowed to submit claims failing a last minute appeal by the suspects. Reports back in 2017 at the time of the arrests suggested that over €9 million was defrauded from three hotel chains, with Mac Hotels hit with €4 million of sickness claims alone.

Made in Mallorca

BOLLYWOOD blockbuster Pathaan, which was filmed largely in Mallorca can be viewed in cinemas in Spain from this Friday. The film began shooting in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Red handed

POLICE have arrested a man, 58, while he was robbing a house in Llucmajor in Mallorca. The stolen jewels and watch were returned to their owners.

Jobs worry

THE unemployment rate in the Balearic islands stands at 10.9%. The figure released by the Active Population Survey (EPA) showed a reduction of -27% compared to the same period in 2021.

Dirty Sunday

OPERA singer Placido

Domingo is facing historical sexual harassment charges after an anonymous singer claimed he asked to touch her inappropriately at a theatre in Spain in the early 2000s.

A MAN has been jailed for 37 years after robbing and raping the same Mallorca shopkeeper on three different occasions.

The assailant, aged 22, pleaded guilty to the triple rape of the woman in Felanitx in exchange for a reduced sentence. Prosecutors had originally wanted a

A MALLORCA-based British CEO was arrested at Madrid airport on a US extradition warrant for allegedly helping a sanctioned Russian oligarch hide his ownership of a luxury yacht.

Richard Masters, 52, was stopped at Madrid-Barajas airport along with Russian national Vladislav Osipov, 51. The pair are facing charges in the US of money laundering and evading sanctions over trying to conceal the ownership of the $90 million, 78 metre motorboat ‘Tango’ by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

Masters, a well-known resident of Santa Maria, has been the chief of Palma-based superyacht management company Master Yachts for the past 23 years.

Despite a US request that he be extradited immediately, the

Triple rapist

51-year penalty.

A Palma court has also ordered him to pay €111,000 in compensation to the victim. Once he serves 12 years in prison, he will be deported to his native Morocco.

In all of the assaults the man entered the store and demanded that she hand over cash from the till, before dragging her into the back store room to rape her.

Police were alerted by a customer who heard cries for help after the victim was locked in the store room during a fourth attempted robbery.