Rents House to Friend, Who Sublets Rooms and Embezzles Tenant's Account

According to the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), the term 'jeta' is used to refer to a person who is very cheeky or bold, that is, someone who is shameless or brazen. This could perfectly define a 27-year-old man arrested this Tuesday in Alicante, who took advantage of a friend's goodwill to allegedly commit a fraud of 7,700 euros, as this newspaper has learned.

Apparently, the arrested man rented a friend's house at a low price, without a contract, to allegedly sublet the rooms. Additionally, he supposedly stole a tenant's mobile phone, with which he committed an embezzlement from their account through bank transactions.

It all began at the end of 2024, when the arrested man asked a friend if he could rent the house at a low cost due to financial difficulties. The friend agreed and received a cash payment every month, without a contract. But the serious crime was not that. Apparently, without the owner's knowledge, he decided to sublet the rooms illegally, at 400 euros per bed.

But the alleged criminal's illicit activities did not stop there. Since the rooms had no locks, one day in December he entered one of the rooms and stole the tenant's mobile phone. Not content with his action, he accessed the victim's bank account and emptied it through a modus operandi that did not involve sending the money to his account.

The alleged criminal claimed problems with his card to offer a transfer in exchange for cash withdrawal. This way, he avoided the money being traced to his account. An attempt to mislead the police that was in vain.

He also bought mobile phones in a store, through a transfer from the victim's account and in cash, according to the investigation. Initially, the store owner also fell for his scheme and repeated the same maneuver with him, but eventually discovered the plot upon realizing that the transfers bore another person's name. And he reported it.

Like the victim, who informed the National Police of the illicit movements in February, two months after the scam, and from the beginning suspected one of his roommates, as one day he found his room completely "ransacked," as he stated in his complaint.

The National Police launched an investigation that ended with the arrest of the alleged fraudster this Tuesday, April 1. The detainee is accused of fraud, an illegal act that concerns authorities due to the increase detected in recent years.