Cardona came into the lives of the victims when I studied at a university in Medellín. There she received classes from the professor and lawyer Kelly Córdoba, with whom over time she managed to establish a fairly close and trustworthy friendship.
the university he always looked like a well-to-do young man from a wealthy family. He wore designer clothes, visited fancy restaurants and even closed a store with a well-known brand to hold a private event and show his friends the latest collection from that store.
In this way, Cardona managed to get his close circle of friends to trust him and, above all, to believe that they had enough money to lead the life he flaunted.
The fraud
When Cardona supposedly managed to be a transparent and trustworthy person for his circle of friends, to the point of being almost a member of Kelly’s family, his former teacher, the university student revealed a “secret” to him: he was a duke of Spain.
At that point, the scammer’s mother, Olga Cardona, was key in making Kelly and her husband, Andrés, who is also a lawyer, believe in the supposed royal title held by their friend. The lady told them that her father was Venancio Cardona, a supposed Spanish duke who was the grandfather of Manuel Alejandroand that he had had to leave Spain during the Civil War.
The man from Antioquia, Manuel Alejandro Estrada Cardona, posed as heir to a Spanish duchy and robbed 18 people. The young man is 29 years old and is the son of Fabio Estrada Chica, former Medellín councilor for the Liberal Party. #RCNRadio
– RCN Radio (@rcnradio) March 27, 2023
According to the mother, Duke Cardona left the title in his inheritance to Manuel and a fortune that the Royal House would give him, once the young man met a series of requirements. He would thus become one of the five richest young people under 30 in Europe and America.
Manuel, according to media local is son of Fabio Estrada Chica, a former Medellín councilor for the Liberal Partyrequested discretion from those who would be his victims, because the Economic Administrative Court of Madrid had mistakenly released and deposited a part of the fortune in his account, but when he spent it, the banking authorities generated a money laundering alert That got him in trouble with the Prosecutor’s Office.
In order to collect the inheritance and win the title of duke, Manuel and his mother said that among the more than 100 requirements that he had to meet, one of them was set up a business, but since his resources were frozen, he asked his friends to lend him funds to open a health food restaurant.
Kelly and Andrés took out personal savings and lent him $6,000 with a promissory note signed by Manuel and his promise to return double when he collected the inheritance, something that never happened.
suspicions
After Manuel received the money from his friends, months passed and the inheritance was not finalized. When Kelly and Andrés began to worry about the borrowed money.the scammer told them that he would travel to Spain with his mother to speed up the procedures.
Once in Spain, the scammer and his mother sent him screenshots of false conversations with alleged officials of the Spanish court that was in charge of his case. A few days later they reported that in order to collect the inheritance, Manuel could not have bank debts. The couple believed them and lent Manuel money again, this time with the promise that the false duke would give them 900,000 euros for being such good friends.
But the months went by and nothing happened. Already Kelly and her partner were furious with Manuel. However, the scammer decided to pay them $20,000as well as other loans to Kelly’s father, Andrés’s sister, and the law firm they had hired.
Manuel disbursed about $60,000 to his close friends, which made them regain their trust in the “Duke of Cardona”. In January 2022, Manuel tells them that they are going to release his inheritance and that he should go to the hearing in Spain together with a group of witnesses to confirm that he had complied with his grandfather’s requirements.
Manuel summoned his close friends, including those who still owed them money, to be his witnesses. He made them sign a confidentiality agreement and attend a black-tie event that would prepare them to participate in a formal dinner with the royal family at the Palacio de Zarzuela.
The group of witnesses was 10 people. Everyone had to be in Spain for about a month to attend the court hearings in Madrid and then the official ceremony where Manuel would be awarded the title of duke and what interested him most, fortune.
Travel to Spain
To go to Spain the witnesses got into debt and borrowed about $55,000. In addition, Manuel asked them for money again, this time with the excuse that he had to pay taxes to be able to send the money to a bank account in Colombia, and that they all had to buy an outfit to go to the Zarzuela, an amount that he would pay them. when he got his fortune.
But when they had been in Spain for several days, a court official reported that the witnesses had to return to Colombia because, once again, they had postponed the hearing, but that in two weeks they had to be back in Madrid.
This generated the anger of Manuel’s friends and they confronted him. There it was the first time they called him a scammerbut they also accused Kelly and Andrés of being accomplices of the false duke, when in reality they were also victims.
The “Tinder scammer” left Alejandro Estrada Cardona, a 28-year-old young man who entangled 18 people in the capital of Antioquia, in diapers. pic.twitter.com/VpYaeiMZ5d
– José María Rodríguez (@JosMara_42) March 26, 2023
Despite the situation, both continued to trust Manuel, and they were about to sue the people who accused him of being a fraudster for libel and slander. In that process, another lawyer opened their eyes and they understood that their false friend and his mother had lied to them.
They began to review the entire situation and confirmed that Manuel was asking for loans from everyone close to him and that when he paid them it was with other people’s funds and not of the fortune that had been advanced to him. Then they called the Economic Administrative Court of Madrid and finished corroborating the scam: an official told them that they did not have any such file.
The victims of the scam remained silent to confront Manuel, but the false duke beat them to it and on May 6, 2022, he made one last call to Kelly’s husband: “Andrés, I already know what you are doing. Keep in mind that I am at the airport, I am leaving the country. Do whatever you want“said the scammer and hung up the phone.
That was the last time they spoke to Manuel. Since then there is no trace of the man, not even on social networks. In the midst of all this, the victims have only been able to resort to legal action, to denounce the scam before the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office.
