Spanish police have reportedly arrested several people and seized computers in Majorca amid a massive operation against alleged fake holiday food poisoning claims.
Civil Guard officers took hold of bundles of documents during court-authorised searches of properties and businesses on the island.
Sources told The Mirror they believe two to three of six people reportedly held by police are British. However, their identities and nationalities remain unconfirmed.
The operation targeted on the municipality of Calvia, which includes Magaluf, as well as the Majorcan capital Palma.
Most of the searches are understood to have taken place in the marina of Puerto Portals, the exclusive nearby residential area of Bendinat, and San Agustin.
An investigating judge co-ordinating the operation has placed a secrecy order on the case, which prevents officials from making any public comment.
However, this order does not restrict reporting of the operation.
It emerged at the end of June that a court in Palma was probing hundreds of food poisoning claims lodged by British holidaymakers after being handed the result of a police investigation sparked by a complaint by Mac Hotels.
Lawyers acting for the hotel group prompted a lengthy police investigation after giving them a dossier of evidence allegedly pointing to the food claims being fake, which was put together by a team of private detectives.
The file handed to the court centres on claims received last year from holidymakers who had stayed at he three-star Club Mac resort in Puerto Alcudia.
The alleged fraud has been calculated at £4 million – with the hotel group challenging 273 claims involving 797 holidaymakers.
Earlier this week, a British-born businesswoman who has spent most of her life living in Majorca was forced to deny any involvement to the food poisoning ‘scam’ after she was linked to the scandal by a Spanish-language local newspaper.
Diario de Mallorca claimed alleged middlemen – spotted near hotels reportedly trying to recruit tourists prepared to make fake claims – had been using a car belonging to her firm.
The expat is said to have admitted to the newspaper the vehicle was hers, but she claimed she had nothing to do with the alleged fraudulent claims.
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