Guardia Civil arrests two over €45,000 TITO ticket fraud in Fuerteventura

Spain's Guardia Civil has arrested two men accused of defrauding about €45,000 at a gaming hall in Morro Jable, Fuerteventura, by falsifying tickets from the TITO (Ticket-In, Ticket-Out) payment system used in gaming machines, the force said. The investigation, carried out under the name operation PIAO, began in September 2026 after the establishment's manager reported irregularities in the payment of prizes, according to the Guardia Civil.

The force said its inquiries indicate the fraud ran for approximately 15 months, between June 2025 and September 2026. According to the Guardia Civil, the suspects duplicated TITO system tickets, which are used to load credits and collect prizes on gaming machines, and collected prizes using falsified receipts, causing the establishment estimated losses of €45,000.

Officers from the investigation area of the Morro Jable main post analysed security camera recordings from the hall and identified possible irregularities involving certain customers, the Guardia Civil said. The footage and other police work led to the identification of the suspects and their arrest.

During the operation, officers seized €2,809 in cash from one of the detainees and recovered a large number of allegedly falsified tickets, which form part of the evidence under investigation. The two arrested men were placed at the disposal of the courts, and the case file was passed to the instruction section of the Tribunal de Instancia de Puerto del Rosario, sitting as the duty court.

The Guardia Civil did not specify the exact technical method used to duplicate the tickets and did not publicly identify the affected hall. It also did not report the full recovery of the €45,000 allegedly defrauded. The operation was announced on 21 October 2026 through information provided by the Guardia Civil.