British mum ‘ringleader of multi-million pound food poisoning scam in Majorca’

Laura Holmes Cameron and her brother Marc Cameron Grimstead allegedly used their company Elite Project Marketing SL to process fraudulent food poisoning claims in Majorca, Spain.

They are accused of hiring five other Brits to help with the illegal operation, and paying them commission to ‘go to hotels and get tourists’ personal details’.

‘This would enable the consumption of meals in hotels to be linked to supposed food poisoning,’ prosecutors said.

An investigating court in Majorca heard how Ryan Bridge – another co-accused – was ‘one of the people tasked in England with processing the false claims’.

A group of eight, including the siblings, were arrested in September 2017 and accused of fraud and membership of a criminal gang.

At the time, detectives estimated the gang cost three major hotel groups £9.5 million.

So far, the court has accounted for more than £176,000 in ‘the amount of compensation obtained in the UK’ but the final figure is not yet known.

The ‘profit-motivated organised gang’ is believed to have operated between 2016 and 2017.

Lawyers for the siblings tried to get the case thrown out, with one saying the tourist information they passed on was part of a market research exercise.

But investigating judge Maria Perez Ruiz rejected this and said ‘several indications of criminality existed’.

One of these was that only 38 of the 800 holidaymakers staying at Club Mac Alcudia who submitted compensation claims had actually asked for medical assistance.

Source of data and images: metro