A 48-year-old woman has been sentenced to six years in prison after squatting in the Bilbao home of an 82-year-old widow, ... locking her in her bedroom, subjecting her to severe physical neglect and plundering approximately 150,000 euros from her bank accounts.
The Provincial Court convicted Agripina M.B. of coercion, breach of trust, theft and abuse. The victim, María Ángeles, who suffers from mild cognitive impairment, lived with her seriously ill brother in the Txurdinaga neighbourhood of Bilbao until his death in late 2018.
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Taking advantage of the widow's vulnerable state and kind nature, the defendant initially offered to clean the flat. Within months, Agripina registered herself at the address and moved in her husband, three children, a grandson and two dogs.
The case has highlighted broader concerns in Biscay, where the public guardianship agency Gaikuntza currently oversees roughly 2,000 vulnerable elderly individuals unable to manage their daily affairs independently.
Confinement, starvation and 150,000-euro fraud
According to the court ruling, the family turned the property into a hostile environment marked by substance use, shouting and constant disputes.
The defendant isolated María Ángeles from friends and family, seizing her mobile phone, keys and travel card. During August 2022, the victim was left without food or money, losing 22 kilograms in weight and suffering severe emaciation before social services intervened.
Financially, Agripina obtained credit cards linked to the victim's accounts, took out personal loans, and withdrew funds the moment widow's pension payments cleared. In May 2019, the victim had 19,100 euros in her account; by April 2020, following 15 cash withdrawals in a single day, the account was overdrawn.
When funds ran out, the defendant coerced María Ángeles into pawning her jewellery and a Rolex watch belonging to her late brother for 3,000 euros. Agripina even attempted to list the flat for sale on idealista.com without authorisation.
Total financial losses are estimated at 150,000 euros. Following intervention by Bilbao municipal social services and a court order in September 2023, María Ángeles was placed under public guardianship and relocated to a care home.
‘The first squatters sold the key to others who were even worse’
María Ángeles “must have been living a nightmare”. “They kept the shutters down all day and when they opened the door, it smelled of cannabis. They didn’t give her any money or food. We neighbours alerted social services. They lived with her for six years and when she moved into a care home, they stayed for another year,” explained a resident of the same block, who was summoned as a witness at the trial. The trial did not go ahead on 6 October because the parties reached a settlement.
When Agripina and her family left María Ángeles’s flat after receiving an ultimatum from the provincial council, “they sold the keys to a young couple, who admitted this to a neighbour. And they were even worse”. They were only in the flat for a month and a half, but the police were called out almost every day. “They knocked a neighbour to the ground to steal her handbag. They cut off the electricity to hook themselves up to the supply, leaving the whole stairwell in darkness. There were screams in the middle of the night, and I was even threatened with death,” she recalled bitterly.
The two young people brought in a third group of squatters, but the police managed to evict them in less than 24 hours.
“Now we’ve had a year of peace, with the house empty,” she said with relief.