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None of them wanted to confront their lenders; If they spoke out loud about what they had experienced, it was out of pure desperation. The victims appeared separately … in Civil Guard barracks and told two horror stories: a kidnapping and a house set on fire on purpose with its tenant inside. The way of frightening them had been different, but the origin was the same. The Civil Guard has arrested four people, belonging to the same clan, who granted loans with exorbitant interest and extorted their victims to return them.
The operation has lasted for almost four months. It culminated a couple of weeks ago with the exploitation phase in Santa Fe, the municipality where both the detainees and those affected reside. IDEAL has been able to speak with sources from the Organic Judicial Police Unit of the Civil Guard Command of Granada to learn more details about the group, which allegedly based its activity in two areas. On the one hand, marijuana trafficking. On the other hand, those known as ‘gabelas’.
They are loans that are generally offered to people with vulnerable profiles, or who need to quickly get the money that a bank has denied them. They give it to you in cash and it has two main handicaps. First of all, exorbitant interests, 300 or 400%. On the other hand, the period for it to be returned is unaffordable. In the case of this clan, he demanded that they deliver it within a week. “What was a loan of 2,000 euros generated a debt of 30,000 and the following Friday they wanted it back,” explain the sources consulted. Obviously, the ‘gabelas’ are not subject to the National Securities Commission.
Operation ManilaFire
The operation in question, called ManilaFire, began in August of this year, when this clan allegedly kidnapped a victim’s sister to pressure her to repay the loan. On December 1, they also apparently burned the home of the mother of another person to whom they had given money. They deliberately threw an incendiary device from outside the house, which caused the fire to spread rapidly. The immediate intervention of the Santa Fe Local Police and the Granada Firefighters was decisive in rescuing her, but the fire caused very serious injuries that put her life in serious danger.
These events are just the tip of the iceberg, the trigger that led the victims to ask for help, since they seriously feared for their lives and that of their families. However, they had previously suffered various intimidations. One of them had even had his car taken away. “In order for the person to pay, they can threaten to kill them, attack them or enter their house,” adds the Civil Guard. And although the ‘gabelas’ are well known to the agents, the truth is that they had never detected a level of extortion as high as this. “They usually threaten and do not execute, but burning a house with someone inside and kidnapping is another level,” they explain.
The investigations led the agents to this group in Santa Fe – the Municipal Police collaborated with them – and determined that they were the alleged perpetrators of these extortions. «Each one carried out an action; “The one who threatens is not going to commit the act of burning the house, they use third parties,” they point out from Benemérita. The exploitation phase of the operation, carried out on December 16, concluded with three men detained, aged between 20 and 43, as allegedly responsible for the crimes of attempted homicide, extortion, house fire, threats, membership in a criminal group and other related crimes.
A 39-year-old woman, the partner of one of the detainees, was also arrested as allegedly responsible for two crimes of extortion, illegal detention, vehicle robbery, membership in a criminal group and against public health. The four were released with charges, but with a prohibition from approaching the victims.
