Barcelona City Council removed 4,230 people from the city’s municipal register of residents over an 18-month period after detecting documents suspected of being fraudulent in applications used to prove access to housing.

The cases are open administrative files, not confirmed fraud, according to municipal information cited by El Periódico. For affected residents, removal means their entry is no longer recorded on the padrón, the municipal register used to record where people live.

The council recorded 3,145 removals in the first year covered by the figures and a further 1,085 in the following six months. It said the cases accounted for less than 0.2% of Barcelona’s reported population of 1.7 million.

Most register removals have other causes

Barcelona removed 162,643 people from its municipal register in the year covered by the council’s annual breakdown. Suspected document fraud falls within the broader category of “improper inclusion”, which can also cover administrative corrections and people who no longer live at an address.

  • 68,825 removals followed a change of address.
  • 24,662 followed expiry of a registration.
  • 14,563 followed a death.
  • 139 related to duplicate entries.
  • 54,454 were classified as improper inclusion.

Police operation cancelled 18 stable-couple registrations

Barcelona City Council says it works with the National Police’s Unit Against Illegal Immigration Networks and Document Forgery, known by its Spanish acronym UCRIF, when evidence may point to a criminal offence.

In a joint operation described by the council, the National Police and the Guàrdia Urbana, Barcelona’s municipal police, dismantled a group suspected of using the residents’ register and Catalonia’s Register of Stable Couples to seek residency permits. Fifteen people were arrested.

Investigators examined 135 files involving foreign-national status and took statements from 30 Spanish citizens identified as presumed victims of identity usurpation, document falsification and fraud. Eighteen registrations of homes for stable couples were cancelled, according to the Barcelona City Council’s account of the operation.

“This operation helped limit a documented fraudulent mechanism to prevent similar cases of this type in the future.”

The council said some Spanish women had reported that their documents were taken or used improperly, and that they had been registered at addresses other than their usual homes without consent.

Primary sources: barcelona.cat, Barcelona City Council, bcnroc.ajuntament.barcelona.cat. Reported by Manuel Arenas, El Periódico Barcelona.