GARDAÍ and Interpol are investigating the Tenerife wedding planner accused of ripping off dozens of couples for hundreds of thousands of euro, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.
The news comes just days after the Mail revealed an Irish couple lost €26,000 when British wedding planner Claire Lopez announced her business was insolvent.
A conservative estimate of money owed to nearly 40 couples who had paid towards their big day is €350,000, sources said.
Sorcha McManigan and her fiancé Alan Kent, both 31, had been planning their perfect day for over two years and flew, on three occasions, to look at venues in the Canary Islands.
The couple contracted Ms Lopez, who runs the company Weddings In Tenerife, and had paid more than two-thirds of the €37,000 bill for their celebrations when they got an email last Friday saying the company was insolvent.
All of Ms Lopez’s social media accounts have since been deleted, as well as her official website.
The Mail also understands that Ms Lopez is already on the radar of international policing agency Interpol through contacts made by other police forces around the world regarding her alleged behaviour.
Now, Ms McManigan is spearheading an ever-growing group of dozens of couples who have been left out of pocket by the planner in a bid to recoup the cash they had paid her.
She told the Mail yesterday: ‘The gardaí and [the Department of] Foreign Affairs have been so good to us, bringing us through the next steps. We felt so alone at the start but they’ve been absolutely great.
‘We’re getting everything together for them and for international police. The people affected are from everywhere.
‘We have someone in every part of the world. Like, there’s a couple in Germany, one American, and then Irish and people from the UK. This is global.
‘We know of one bride who had sent over €925 worth of items in two suitcases for her wedding. She has pleaded with her [Lopez] to just drop them off somewhere but she hasn’t got any response from her.’
Gardaí will now seek Interpol’s help as part of the investigation into Ms Lopez. Complaints regarding the planner go back as far as 2022.
From the Garda perspective, officers here can contact the Canarian police force directly as well as using Interpol channels to exchange intelligence.
Speaking to the Mail yesterday, Ms McManigan said the number of people who had come forward since she shared her story has been ‘overwhelming’.
She said she did not want to identify other couples who were keen to maintain their privacy but added that there is an ever-increasing number of people contacting her regarding Ms Lopez.
She said: ‘We’re on about 36 couples out there but we’re looking for more people to come forward.
‘We’re slowly climbing up [with the numbers] and we are reaching out to those affected. There are also people got married previously as well and had used her.
‘People are very careful about talking about financial loss, especially in Ireland, but we want them to come forward and not to be embarrassed about it.’
She continued: ‘We did all our homework and still got burned. We’re on a mission now to get the word out and spread it far and wide and tell people to get in touch with us on social media.
‘We’re trying to find more people that have been affected because there’s an amazing group that we’ve put together to share resources and knowledge, just to try and make some sense of this.’
Ms McManigan said Tenerife police told two couples the issue is a civil matter.
Some are attempting to pool money together after being quoted thousands of euro from lawyers to take the case.
Ms McManigan, who is a civil servant, said she plans on marrying in Tenerife this September.
She added: ‘I can’t cancel the wedding, everyone’s got flights booked and accommodation booked and I don’t want people to lose money.
‘We’ve people flying in from the US, France and Ireland.’
Spain’s business registry shows that Weddings In Tenerife was incorporated in February 2023 and Claire Lopez is not the planner’s legal name.
Two directors are listed: Claire Louise Mary Oxenham and Lars Jensen, a Danish ex-biker who Ms McManigan says she was told was her wedding planner’s husband.
While couples who paid tens of thousands of euro had been told over email last week that the company would be filing for insolvency ‘as soon as our lawyer has prepared the necessary documents’, the business registry shows that as of yesterday evening the company was still active.
The lack of communication has left Ms McManigan and Mr Kent ‘incredibly suspicious’ that they were defrauded rather than the company having gone bust, she said.
‘For the last two years she hasn’t paid any vendors, so we have no food, no DJ, no furniture, where did that money go?’ she asked.
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said it ‘is aware of this case and has provided advice and assistance’.
Gardaí and Interpol were contacted for comment.