Alicante businessman faces 6 years in prison for mask scams during the pandemic

A businessman from Alicante might spend six years in prison for selling masks to four medical companies during the pandemic and not delivering them. Today, Monday, November 10th, the Provincial...

November 10, 2025 2 Mins Read

A businessman from Alicante might spend six years in prison for selling masks to four medical companies during the pandemic and not delivering them.

Today, Monday, November 10th, the Provincial Court of Alicante will hear the case of a man who is suspected of lying to multiple businesses about selling N95-type masks amid the health crisis caused by the epidemic.

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The prosecution says that in March 2020, the defendant put the masks for sale in the health market to locate purchasers who were interested in the goods, which were hard to find at the time and were thought to be essential.

After the sale was done, the individual asked for payment in advance for the masks, which the victims, at least four companies, would never get.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office is asking for a six-year prison sentence for him for continuing to commit fraud. They also say that most of the impacted companies were contractors for public agencies.

Fraud during the epidemic

The Guardia Civil arrested four people in 2024 who were part of a criminal group that ran internet scams selling medical supplies and air conditioning equipment. Some of these scams happened in the province of Alicante.

individuals who were responsible for the fraud, identity theft, and document forgery that took place when they posed as actual organisations and sold health items and air conditioning equipment online were charged with a lot of offences. They have so far cheated individuals out of almost 22,000 euros.

The investigation started after a businessman on the island of Lanzarote submitted a complaint in July 2023 about being scammed out of more than 9,000 euros when he bought medical goods to fight COVID-19 (masks, gel, and gloves).

It seems that these people sold sanitary products on a number of online marketplaces. They got their victims to trust them by sending them product samples and “proform invoice” type paperwork in the name of real companies. Then they got paid for the products they never sent to the victims.

In addition to using real business documents and fake documents to make their fake online product offers look legal, they also created a network of real identities stolen from immigrants and citizens to hide their true identity. This was enough to trick their victims.