Rincón de la Victoria insurance fraud: Court sentences couple for 50+ unauthorised policies

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A couple were cheated out of thousands by a trusted friend, but the defendants’ 21-month sentence means they will stay out of prison

Irene Quirante

Monday, 16 February 2026, 12:11

An insurance agent and his wife have avoided prison despite defrauding a family from Rincón de la Victoria (Malaga province) by taking out more than 50 policies in their name without their consent.

The ruling of the provincial court convicts the couple of a fraud offence and sentences them to one year and nine months. Due to the sentence being shorter than two years and given the lack of previous convictions, the couple will not serve it in prison.

The victims - 56-year-old María Teresa Zaragoza and her husband, 65-year-old Miguel Galo - remain deeply upset by the ruling, which adds to the bitterness of being defrauded by someone they trusted.

The owners of the El Deo restaurant started checking their statements during the pandemic and found out that their insurance agent, who worked for the Generali company, had been using them for years.

The victims’ daughter María Teresa Galo has said that the family will not appeal, citing exhaustion from the lengthy legal process and concern over potentially losing what they have already recovered. Generali will not bear consequences.

According to María Teresa Galo, the compensation does not cover the full amount defrauded, which she estimates between 35,000 and 38,000 euros. The defendants have benefitted from the mitigating factor of reparations, as they had already deposited 28,382 euros with the victims before the trial.

Civil liability was set at the same sum, based on the expert report. The victims’ lawyer said that the report did not account for all the fraudulent transactions, having acknowledged roughly 170, while around 530 had actually occurred. The lawyer’s attempts to raise the liability to 43,006 euros and to apply the aggravating factor of abuse of trust or professional credibility were also rejected.

The victims feel dissatisfied with the sentence. “What we really wanted was for him to go to jail, even more than recovering the money,” the couple’s daughter said.

According to the court’s findings, the defendants had used the agent’s access credentials to operate the insurance company’s system, creating multiple false policies in the names of third parties, with the premiums charged to the restaurant owners’ bank account, without their consent. They also recorded policies listing the victims themselves as policyholders, again without permission.

The initial prison sentence was five years, but the court reduced it after the defendants reached a plea agreement with the prosecution by acknowledging their responsibility.

“He took advantage of my father’s trust, he was such a close friend. When we discovered the transactions, my father still vouched for him because he couldn’t believe he was capable of this,” María Teresa Galo said.