Spain detains Chinese suspect in swindles

Spanish police said on Tuesday they have detained a Chinese man wanted for allegedly swindling 40 people in China out of about 17 million euros ($23 million) between 2009 and 2012.

The 46-year-old man, identified only by his initials Q.Z., was arrested near his home in Albacete in southeastern Spain under an international warrant issued by Chinese authorities, police said in a statement.

"The fugitive, under the pretext of running a pawnshop and a deposit company and being the director of a company, captured the public's money by offering a monthly interest rate of 5 percent," the statement said.

"He swindled more than 140 million yuan, around 17 million euros, from 40 victims," it said.

In June, Spanish police detained a Chinese man in Madrid wanted for allegedly selling homes in China that were never built to more than 10,000 families between 2011 and 2013 in a scam worth more than 24.5 million euros.

About 185,000 Chinese nationals live in Spain, the fifth-biggest foreign community in the country, according to the National Statistics Institute of Spain.