INFO: Spain - Translation agency owners arrested for non-payment of translators

[Guest guest]

Dear Listmates,

For those who are not aware of the news yet, published yesterday on

ProZ, LinkedIn, Viadeo, Twitter, etc.., and in case some of you might be

the victims of those crooks, - I hope it's not the case - let me

summarize the situation :

The Spanish authorities (the Catalan police ) have arrested the two

managers of a translation agency which didn't pay its translators.

Moreover, they used to impersonate some real colleagues in order to get

the jobs.

Currently, the financial damage is estimated at approx. Euro 20,000, but

the investigation is still ongoing.

" The detainees, V.F., 43, and Nuria D.R., 38, used

websites to find and hire translators, who accepted the jobs, deliverd

them, and waited in vain to be paid. When the translators tried to claim

their payment by contacting the person who they thought had assigned

them the job, they realized that that person either did not exist or was

not who in reality had hired them. " (this last part has been translated

from Spanish by Vicente on L-I)

The article article below is in Spanish:

http://www.lavanguardia.com/local/barcelona/20120530/54301012551/detienen-en-bar\

celona-a-los-responsables-de-una-empresa-por-estafar-a-traductores.html

<http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elavanguardia%2Ecom%2Flo\

cal%2Fbarcelona%2F20120530%2F54301012551%2Fdetienen-en-barcelona-a-los-responsab\

les-de-una-empresa-por-estafar-a-traductores%2Ehtml & urlhash=7m3E & _t=tracking_ane\

t>

The name of this agency is MAREMAGNUM, and

According to the ProZ Blue Board, the other names of this agency are :

http://www.proz.com/blueboard/753

<http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eproz%2Ecom%2Fblueboard%\

2F753 & urlhash=bdKn & _t=tracking_disc>

MTM / Maremagnum Servicio Lingüístico / Grupo Universal / Grupo MTM /

GRUPO TRADUCTORES ASOCIADOS / GLOBAL SCHOOL EMITIEM SL /

Colleagues - namely non-Spanish ones - who are owed money by those

crooks must make themselves known to the Catalan police, for instance

via translators associations. (e.g. I know that AIPTI/IAPTI - of which a

lot of members are " Spanish-native " - is already ready to help the

victims to contact the investigators http://www.aipti.org/eng/ )

But I sincerely do hope that no one among our listmates is affected by

this case.

Good luck!