The judge in charge of the case against Fernando Ferré, the owner of the Grupo Playa Sol hotel chain who is accused of tax evasion, money laundering and falsifying documents, as well as employing illegal immigrants, has agreed that he should receive €2,000 per month living expenses. All his bank accounts and businesses have been embargoed while the investigation continues. The judge commented that Ferré “is a man with few outgoings and simple tastes, as he always lived for his work and never spent money liberally on dining out, holidays or leisure pursuits, but now he has nothing to live on”. He said that he presumed that during the two months since his release from prison he must have been living on handouts from family and friends.
Ferré’s lawyer, Gabriel Garcias, commented that the case is a “one-off” and he has never come across anything similar in his entire career. He added that his client has been provided with meals every day from one of the hotels in the GPS chain, but that he needs the money to pay for day-to-day bills and to pay travelling expenses to visit doctors, as he has serious circulation problems.
