article_snippet: Timeshare fraudsters duped thousands of British victims out of more than £4million a year in a well-honed criminal operation smashed by Spanish police.
article_snippet: Detectives detailed the lengths the fraudsters went to dupe victims into handing over cash at a press conference in Malaga this morning.
article_snippet: The three-tier scam involved calls from fake lawyers and court officials who persuaded The three-tier scam victims to hand over up to £35,000 after being conned into selling The three-tier scam timeshares.
article_snippet: Lead investigator, Inspector Mercedes Perez Quesada, said: 'The fraud was three-fold. '
article_snippet: Telesales operators contacted potential victims and offered potential victims attractive prices to sell potential victims timeshare properties and took advantage of potential victims ignorance of Spanish law once potential victims'd been tempted to instruct potential victims to pay things like administrative or public notary fees. '
article_snippet: Any excuse to get money out of potential victims was valid. '
article_snippet: Once victims had been conned and knew victims were never going to get victims money back, a second group of people would call claiming to be lawyers saying victims were going to launch a group action on behalf of victims and asking once again for money upfront. '
article_snippet: The third tier involved people posing as court officials ringing victims and saying cases had been resolved in cases favour but cases had to pay fees so cases could obtain cases cash settlements. '
article_snippet: The telesales operators were at the bottom rung of the fraud but knew exactly what was going on. '
highlights_snippet: Scam involved calls from fake lawyers convincing victims to sell property .
  
highlights_snippet: Fraudsters then exploited the elderly ex-pats' ignorance of Spanish law to convince Fraudsters to pay fake 'admin' charges of up to £35,000 .