Five Investigated After Nearly €20,000 Holiday Villa Scam Targeting Lanzarote Tourism Business
A Lanzarote holiday rental company was allegedly targeted by an elaborate scam involving fake villa bookings, stolen bank cards and a bogus tourism intermediary, prompting a major Guardia Civil investigation that has extended beyond the island.
The Guardia Civil in Lanzarote has investigated five people and identified a further six in connection with an alleged fraud that cost a local tourism business close to €20,000.
The investigation centres around a Lanzarote holiday villa rental company that reported falling victim to a sophisticated scheme involving apparently genuine customers, identity documents and bank card payments.
The case is being investigated in relation to alleged offences including fraud, document falsification, identity theft and membership of a criminal group. The police operation remains open, meaning further developments or arrests have not been ruled out.
How the Lanzarote holiday villa scam allegedly began
The events are reported to date back to 2025, when a man presenting himself as a tourism intermediary approached a company operating in Lanzarote’s holiday rental sector.
According to information released about the investigation, the intermediary offered to bring the business new customers looking to rent holiday villas in Lanzarote. In exchange for generating these bookings, he would receive a commission.
On the surface, the arrangement appeared to be a normal commercial agreement between businesses working within the tourism industry.
After the deal was established, the intermediary reportedly supplied details of supposed holidaymakers wishing to book accommodation. These included identity documents as well as bank card information that could be used to process payments for the villa reservations.
The Lanzarote company processed the transactions and, initially, the payments appeared to have been successfully completed.
With the bookings seemingly confirmed and paid for, the intermediary then requested the commission he was due under the agreement – an amount totalling close to €20,000.
The local business subsequently transferred the money to several different bank accounts that had been provided for payment.
Stolen bank cards allegedly used to pay for Lanzarote villa bookings
The problem reportedly emerged after the commission had already been paid.
The original payments made for the holiday villa reservations began to be cancelled by the financial institutions that had issued the cards.
Investigators established that the bank cards allegedly used to make the bookings had previously been stolen in other European Union countries.
This left the Lanzarote company in a damaging position: the money it believed it had received for the villa reservations was reversed, while the commission of almost €20,000 had already been transferred.
The business reported the alleged fraud, which came to the attention of the Guardia Civil during the first quarter of 2026.
Guardia Civil cybercrime specialists investigate
The investigation was handled by Lanzarote’s Equipo Arroba, a specialist Guardia Civil team dealing with cybercrime.
Officers gathered information relating to the transactions, analysed financial movements and carried out further enquiries to establish how the alleged fraud had been organised.
Investigators identified individuals suspected of providing either personal documentation or access to bank accounts that could be used to support the operation.
According to reports based on information from the Guardia Civil, five people are being investigated.
Money allegedly withdrawn from cash machines in Madrid
The financial trail also reportedly led investigators to the suspected leader of the group.
The alleged ringleader is suspected of using bank accounts belonging to third parties and withdrawing money from cash machines at different locations across the Madrid region.
Investigators believe this method was used in an attempt to make the movement of the money more difficult to trace back to those allegedly responsible for the fraud.
Investigation remains open
The Guardia Civil operation is continuing, and authorities have indicated that further action has not been ruled out.
The case highlights how fraud linked to the tourism industry can affect not only holidaymakers searching for accommodation online but also legitimate Lanzarote holiday rental businesses themselves.
In this instance, the victim was reportedly a company operating within Lanzarote’s tourism sector rather than tourists who had paid for a villa that did not exist. The alleged scheme instead relied on convincing the business that genuine, paid-for reservations had been secured, allowing a substantial commission to be paid before the fraudulent card transactions were discovered.
The identities of the Lanzarote company involved and those under investigation have not been publicly disclosed in the reports reviewed.
This is a separate incident from the holiday rental scam reported earlier this week, in which a man was arrested in connection with an alleged fraud involving more than €50,000. Although both cases involve holiday accommodation and links to the Canary Islands, they are separate investigations and are not believed to be connected.
