A hotel chain faces a fine of 100,000 euros for dumping rubbish on protected land

The Police have filed a complaint against the administrator of a hotel chain, that has complexes on the islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Fuerteventura, accused of dumping large amounts of waste and construction materials on protected land in the municipalities of Agüimes and Las Palmas in Gran Canaria.

An investigation began in March after Local Police officers reported that someone had dumped 14 old bathtubs in the middle of the San Lorenzo ravine in the capital of Gran Canaria, an area whose soil is protected because of its agricultural value.

Next to the bathtubs, the agents found several old shower trays in boxes bearing the name of a well-known company that sells construction materials based in Las Palmas and in Telde, which would become the key piece of evidence in the investigation.

Officers went to the store and asked them for information on any customers who had recently bought these shower trays, finding details of a purchase of 25 of them by the administrator of a well-known hotel chain.

Suspecting that the dumped bathtubs could have come from the renovation works of a hotel, the Local Police requested the assistance of the General Corps of the Canary Islands Police to carry out an inspection in one of the hotel chains complexes in the municipality of Mogán.

This search confirmed that renovation work was being carried out which included upgrading the bathrooms and replacing the bathtubs, and that their characteristics fully matched with those found in the San Lorenzo ravine.

In addition, the hotel couldn’t prove to the police where the old bathtubs were being taken away to be disposed of, something which is a legal obligation when renovation work is being carried out.

However, the investigation also uncovered that other materials were being replaced in the hotel rooms, including the curtains with a very recognisable pattern on them, so much so, that officers recalled seeing a large amount of them dumped in Vargas in the municipality of Agüimes, on more protected land.

For this reason, they returned to Vargas to carry out a thorough inspection of the rubbish dumped there, and found various materials such as sheets and curtains that even had labels with the hotel's name on them, in addition to another 14 bathtubs with similar characteristics to those found in the San Lorenzo ravine.

As a result of their findings, the Canary Islands Police and the Local Police have filed a complaint against the hotel chain with fines of up to 100,000 euros for illegal dumping, in addition to the obligation to repair the environmental damage they have caused.