UK Edition
Majorca hits back as hotels hire private detectives to catch British holidaymakers who fake food poisoning
Majorca has hit back at British holidaymakers who make fake food poisoning claims by hiring private detectives to catch them.
Police in the resort have handed a file of alleged fake holiday sickness claims to a judge to investigate after hotels complained.
The investigation was launched by lawyers for the Mac Hotels group who hired private detectives to gather a dossier of evidence against people who had made claims of sickness.
The ongoing investigation is believed to be the first of its kind brought about by a hotel group complaint and the biggest criminal probe to date.
A British man was arrested in June in Majorca and a second has been placed under formal investigation on suspicion of encouraging tourists to make fake food poisoning claims after allegedly targeting them outside hotels in the north east of the island.
A specialist police fraud squad known as UDEF presented a report to the Palma court after receiving a dossier from the law firm hired by Mac Hotels which included documentation put together by private detectives.
The private investigators are understood to have included photos and taped conversations in the report handed to police, gathered partly from an exhaustive social media search.
Detectives handed their own file into the investigating court in June after a six-month probe of their own based on the hotel group complaint.
The move represents a significant step-up in the fight against allegedly fake food claims, which have sparked an angry backlash from Spanish hoteliers and led Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to declare recently that the digestive systems of British people had "become the most delicate in the world."
The files are believed to contain hundreds of alleged fake reports dating back to December.
Carolina Ruiz, the lawyer at Monlex Abogados who handed over details of MAC Hotels clients suspected of making fake compensation claims, told island paper Ultima Hora: "The judicialization of this operation is an important step in the fight against fraudulent claims which hotels are suffering with a feeling of helplessness."
The file submitted to police is believed to include proof the hotel group had passed all its obligatory health inspections with flying colours.
Thomas Cook chief executive Peter Frankhauser warned on Wednesday bogus food poisoning claims risk making British holidaymakers the laughing stock of Europe.
The travel firm boss told an Abta conference the actions of a "very small minority" risked having an impact on the "majority of honest Brits who worked hard for their annual holiday.
Pointing out false claims are criminal offences, he added: "We need to work together to clamp down on any activity that we believe fraudulent and seek changes to the law to close the holiday sickness claims loophole."