Lleida’s municipal urban planning company, EMAU, expects to have around fifty municipal housing units in the Mariola district by the end of the year, SEGRE reported on 9 October. These homes were secured through pre-emptive purchase and right of first refusal, alongside other acquisition methods. It is the same district where the Mossos d’Esquadra partially dismantled a criminal organisation dedicated to squatting properties and subsequently renting them out fraudulently, Crónica Global reported in June 2025.

The network that squatted and sublet

The operation resulted in the arrest of four men, aged between 20 and 35, and a 16-year-old minor, according to the newspaper. They face charges of threats, coercion, trespassing, burglary with force, assault, and membership of a criminal group. The investigation began following an assault on three men on Júpiter Street in Lleida, who had rented an apartment about three months earlier by paying 1,000 euros to an alleged landlord. They later discovered that the property was squatted and was being illegally sublet.

On the day of the attack, around ten people broke into the flat, some armed with machetes and baseball bats, according to the same outlet. The property legally belonged to a company based in Madrid. The group primarily targeted vulnerable individuals, mostly undocumented immigrants, which deterred them from filing complaints, according to the newspaper. The alleged ringleader of the gang is Iván G.G., who was already in prison for his alleged involvement in the assault on six Mossos officers in the Mariola district.

A district of 435 flats

According to Nació Digital, the Mariola district was the site of more than a hundred police operations during the first few months of 2025. In one such incident, six Mossos d’Esquadra officers were injured after being attacked by local residents while responding to a brawl involving nearly 200 people.

The same outlet reports that the Paeria is set to launch a public tender to renovate the blocks in the Grup Mariola. The plan envisages works on 435 flats spread across nine buildings in the Grup Mariola and a further two on Cardenal Cisneros Street; the majority, 287 units, are privately owned. The project revives the “Pla Mariola 20.000”, a scheme devised in 2017 by the socialist administration.

What remains to be seen

None of the three outlets cited details how much the EMAU paid for the flats acquired in the Mariola, nor whether any of them were occupied at the time of purchase.

Sources and verification

This report is based on three sources: SEGRE, 9 October 2026; Crónica Global, 26 June 2025; and Nació Digital, 3 May 2025. The EMAU’s purchase file could not be consulted. The administrative status of the victims is sourced from Crónica Global and could not be corroborated by a second source.