British mother, 43, faces eight years in hellhole Spanish jail for 'hotel food ... trends now
A glamorous mother-of-three is facing up to eight years in a hellhole Spanish jail if convicted over a massive holiday food poisoning scam.
Laura Holmes Cameron can expect one of the stiffer sentences of the group of eight Britons if she is proved to be the ringleader of the alleged racket at trial.
The 43-year-old Essex-born expat describes herself on social media as an entrepreneur who now works in travel and trade and 'turns passions into pay cheques'.
She was charged with fraud and membership of a criminal gang this week after a long-running probe sparked by police arrests in Majorca in September 2017.
Laura Holmes Cameron, Essex-born owner of a notorious Magaluf bar, now faces trial
Well-placed insiders told MailOnline yesterday the type of fraud she is accused of - aggravated fraud - carries a prison sentence of up to six years in Spain and the second charge she is facing a maximum jail sentence of two years.
One said: 'She's probably looking at five to eight years if convicted of both crimes. That's likely to be the sort of sentence prosecutors will be seeking.'
The investigating judge who charged Laura, under her maiden surname rather than her married name of Joyce, accused her in a six-page written ruling of 'leading the profit-motivated organised gang' with her brother Marc Cameron Grimstead through a Spanish company called Elite Project Marketing SL.
Palma-based Maria Perez Ruiz also accused the pair of hiring accomplices paid on commission to get British tourists on the holiday island to put in false food poisoning claims.
Detectives were said at the time of their arrests to have estimated the losses of the hotel groups whose fraud claims sparked a police crackdown dubbed Operation Claims at around £9.5 million.
MailOnline understands the final figure hoteliers and a state prosecutor will demand as compensation has not yet been finalised.
Pregnant Laura Holmes Cameron is pictured arriving at court in Majorca, September 7, 2017, at a previous hearing in relation to the alleged scam
Fellow accused members of the alleged ring include Susan Lyle (left) and Tegan Sumerlee (right), pictured outside court
Holmes Cameron was arrested at a luxury villa in upmarket Bendinat near the glamorous Majorcan port of Puerto Portals (pictured)
The investigating judge made it clear in the ruling made public on Wednesday the payouts obtained in the UK from the alleged fraud in 2016 and 2017 'notably exceeded' £176,000.
Prosecutors are expected to be invited to submit their indictments by the end of next month.
Highly-respected Majorca based lawyer Jaime Campaner is representing the island's hotel federation, which launched its own legal action running separately to the state prosecutor's as part of the same criminal case.
Laura's lawyer is experienced Gabriel Llado, who said after his client appeared in court in May 2018 in a closed hearing that she had admitted to passing on the names and phone numbers of holidaymakers for payment but insisted it was part of a pure market research exercise.
He also insisted neither the alleged gang leaders or the so-called 'claims farmers' used to gather data of tourists Laura passed on to others in the UK, encouraged the holidaymakers to get chemist's receipts so they could make fake food poisoning claims as police and hoteliers' representatives have claimed.
