(Granada Province) Blaming your driving offence on somebody else by giving the police their details instead of yours has its pitfalls, as six wealthy businessmen have discovered.

Using lawyers and specialised companies to avoid paying traffic fines is a growing trend – it works out cheaper to pay the fees rather than the fines, with the added benefit of not losing points off your licence.

But what about when the procedure by these people is sloppy and you end up charged with lying to the police – which is a criminal offence, rather than just a traffic fine? Well, that’s what happened to siz well-off, Granada businessmen; two from Fuente Vaquero and four from the city of Granada.

Things went egg shaped when the false identity information used belonged to a Moroccan man, married to an Andalusian women: in the space of several months his account was embargoed a total of five times for traffic fines that didn’t belong to him. The couple went to the Guardia Civil bearing irrefutable proof that he was in Morocco on the dates of the traffic infractions… and the investigative ball began to roll.

Further investigation also turned up an Italian who had suffered 18 such embargoes. This man’s identity had been given by the two businessmen from Fuente Vaqueros. The police immediately arrested them, charged them, and released them pending trial. They had used a lawyer firm in Madrid.

The other four culprits, some of whom are high up in the show-business world, also used law firms in Madrid.

Back in March, a lawyer from Castilla-Leon was arrested for falsifying the identities of clients for this same end, using an Internet web page to advertise his service.

(News: Province of Granada, Andalucia)