Barcelona City Council is now seeking prison sentences for the alleged leaders of a major illegal tourist accommodation network, known as the “Swedish Peruvians”. The case centres on illegal tourist flats in Barcelona, mainly in Ciutat Vella and the Eixample.
Municipal inspectors say the group currently controls at least 66 properties. At its peak, it is said to have managed up to 220 illegal tourist flats. The alleged method was to rent large apartments, split them into rooms, and then advertise those rooms on online platforms.
Property owners say their homes were turned into clandestine guesthouses without their knowledge. The group is accused of using straw men to sign leases and shell companies to move payments, which helped it avoid administrative fines for years.
The council’s move from fines to criminal prosecution follows a decade of investigations. Inspectors gathered thousands of pages of evidence, linking straw men, properties and money flows. In late 2024, the council sent dossiers to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Catalan Tax Agency, and the Mossos then prepared the case for criminal court.
The group got its nickname because some early members were Peruvian citizens with Swedish passports. Its activity is said to have expanded around 2017, starting with a flat on Canuda Street in the Gòtic. The flat was divided into several rooms with multiple beds, and after the first contract ended in 2022, it was rented again using different straw men. In 2023, two more flats in the same building were also taken over.
Investigators estimate the Canuda Street operation alone brought in nearly €1.4 million between 2024 and 2025. A separate set of three properties on Regomir Street reportedly generated close to €900,000 in recent years. Across 24 properties between 2019 and 2025, the total may have topped €10 million.
The case has also left property owners with heavy costs. One owner on Cucurulla Street, in the Gòtic, rented out a flat and an office in August 2021, believing the tenant was a Swedish expat. He later found the tenant was a “ghost tenant” for the group, and said he spent €9,000 on lawyers and detectives to recover the properties in October 2024, while also losing €4,000 in unpaid rent.
Despite more than €7 million in fines, the Municipal Tax Institute has struggled to seize assets. Inspectors found no attachable property belonging to the straw men, and La Vanguardia reported in late 2024 that some funds may be in Latvia. In 2023, two straw men rented a flat on Via Laietana, with a trusted collaborator acting as guarantor and then sub-letting the flat for tourist use on behalf of a company linked to one of the brothers. That company, which was supposedly for sports facility management, recorded more than €1.5 million in sales in 2023 and later made several payments to one brother’s Latvian account, including €85,000, €70,000, €50,000 and €15,000.
The council’s tougher approach is already being used in other cases. The Public Prosecutor’s Office recently charged five alleged members of a separate “Russian” illegal rental group with aggravated continuous fraud and belonging to a criminal group. For more on the wider crackdown, see our coverage of community issues in Barcelona and local sport and business links.
Originally published by La Vanguardia Barcelona. Read the original report here. For official context, see the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Barcelona City Council.
