The Guardia Civil in Albuñol have arrested two individuals, aged 23 and 28, and are also investigating the 72-year-old father of one of them, in connection with arson and car-insurance fraud.

The ‘gentlemen’ concerned had taken out an all-risk insurance policy with a vehicle price evaluation of 36,400 euros… then it was mysteriously incinerated – the car; not the policy.

One of them had turned up on the 19th of April at the Guardia Civil post in Albuñol, knuckling back a tear and barely controlled anguish to report that his son’s car had been set on fire and burnt out after he had left it parked in a restaurant car park just off the N-340. The car-cum-ashtray had been bought new only seven months previously.

The lad, explained the father, had parked it at 1930h and when he had gone back to pick it up at midnight that same evening, he found it completely burnt out.

The investigative branch of the Guardia Civil police in Motril were given the task of looking into it and came up with the conclusion that the son and his friend had carried out the dastardly deed, bless their cotton socks.

Why, you might ask? Well, apparently the car had had serious mechanical problems and he had taken it back to the dealer for repairs and although these had been carried out, the son was not convinced that all was how it should be, given its newness, so he thought the best way to get a new one was to torch his car, thus claiming a new one from the dealer’s insurance company.

The said insurance company already had the money earmarked and were ready to pay out until they discovered that the Guardia Civil were going to investigate the incident…

(News: Albuñol, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)