From Jordi Amat to Beatriz Montañez: 7 biographical and autobiographical books for this summer
"The chameleon swindler Francisco Gómez Manzanares,
who invents lives to deceive his victims,
accumulates 24 complaints..."
"He seduces women to keep their money.
In fact, half of the victims he scammed in Éibar and Zaragoza,
they were male."
"In his last professional stage, he took pains to pretend
who was a member of the technical team
of Barcelona Football Club."
"The con man was tried for deceiving four men
with non-existent flats in Barcelona."
Guillem Sánchez has published a "true crime"
with a very forceful title,"The swindler".
Here he tells the story of Francisco Gómez Manzanares,
born in Vitoria on April 18, 1974.
And that since he was 20 years old he has dedicated himself to scamming and deceiving
a lot of people, mostly women.
To know him is to know a manual impostor.
"To create a manual impostor, it is only necessary to add the talent
of these five book phonies.
When the cyclops Polyphemole asks his name,
he cleverly claims to be nobody.
Then, when he returned to his kingdom from Ithaca,
will pose as a beggar to annihilate
to his wife's suitors.
This great impostor stars in 'The Odyssey.'
A dark character enters the bosom
from a wealthy family and seduces all its members
for your own interest.
will star in Molière's best-known work
and his name will also be associated forever
to a tempting cake.
A poor hustler receives the order
from a millionaire to get his son back
of a luxurious life in Europe.
He sees his big break here.
Murder the rich young ruler and impersonate him.
The talented Tom Ripley came to star in
Five novels by Patricia Highsmith.
This is the real case of a man
who in 1993 murdered his wife and their two small children.
This event, which occurred in France, gave way to
to an investigation by Emmanuel Carrère
which was captured in his brilliant book,
'The adversary'.
Paradigm of the born impostor,
Enric Marco was building his curriculum
based on falsified experiences.
He even went so far as to present himself as a victim
from a Nazi concentration camp.
When Javier Cercas novelized his life,
He was very clear about the title, 'The impostor'.
Guillem, how do you get to the story of this con man?
There is a neighbor reading a short from the newspaper
in which it is reported that the "mossos d'Esquadra"
they have been arrested at the Ciutat Esportiva of Barça
a scammer of women who was posing as
by Barcelona Football Club coach,
Barca coach,
and also by sea rescue sergeant.
And he recognizes in the way he acts, or thinks he recognizes a man
whose name is Francisco Gómez Manzanares.
So, he asks me for help, he tells me:
"I need to know if this person was arrested by the 'mossos'
is it Francisco Gómez Manzanares or not".
I tell you that there is no problem, I can do it.
I do it and the "mossos" confirm me after a little
that indeed the person they have arrested
as of March 2017, he is Francisco Gómez Manzanares.
I'm calling to tell him it's him, but I want to know exactly
how did he know, how did he figure it out.
So, tell me that this guy, before scamming in Catalonia
I had also been in Euskadi, then, right away,
I realized that we are in front of a criminal
which is unusual and from a big scammer
whom I really want to know more about.
Why are we at the Circuit de Catalunya
Formula 1 motorcycle?
Because Francisco Gómez Manzanares
She has stepped into the shoes of many different professions.
He's a chameleon. That is, he's for scamming,
does it from the creation of a character,
whose name is David, who keeps changing professions.
And it always makes these kinds of changes
very attentive to fashion, very attentive to his surroundings.
In the end, these years that I have followed his trajectory a bit,
I realized that it was a bit of a trip through Spain
of the last decades. He is a man of his time.
He is a man of his time, who is attentive
to what people want and takes this form to seduce them.
He, it is no coincidence that, for example, in the late 90s,
was posing as Ertzaintza, because at the end of the 90s
The Ertzaintza is very present in the Basque Country.
Also, he sees them as a figure of credibility
that help you in your scamming purposes.
It is no coincidence that he later chose the profession of Formula 1 driver,
because there is a "boom" of Fernando Alonso.
So, everyone in Spain is very aware
of what happens here and he perceives it as an outbreak of glamor
of which he wants to be a part, and also uses
to deceive, just like after
gets into the shoes of a coach from the Barça coaching staff.
Guardiola's Barça, and Messi, above all,
It is a Barça that illuminates, and he takes advantage of all these spotlights
to dazzle their victims.
You mentioned it before.
Is there a more or less fixed pattern of victims?
I say this because, above all, in that last part,
Almost all of them are women he seduced.
Yeah. It didn't happen that much at first.
He, I am convinced, would have cheated me,
that I would have ripped you off.
I think he would have ripped us all off.
Because he is very good at detecting the emptiness that we have.
Everyone has gaps or desires.
And he gets in the exact position to fill them in.
The cheated women, in the final phase of Catalonia,
which is a stage where he specializes only in women
and use the sentimental seduction strategy
to carry out its purposes,
it's clear that he's doing research here.
That is, that he immerses himself in social networks
and on dating apps.
And he investigates very thoroughly each of the profiles
and is looking for women aged 35, 40, 45,
that they are alone and that for some reason
They're tired of being alone.
And above all, if they want to be mothers,
if, for example, you have the information
because you asked through another fake profile
who wanted to be mothers and have started
an assisted reproduction treatment,
here he smells blood and behaves like a predator.
Then, he goes for them.
"To the lies of the counterfeiter by Guillem Sánchez
We must add promises of love that he made to his victims.
Romantic love has nothing to do with real love.
You just have to read the cartoons of Moderna de Pueblo
in 'Pussydramas'.
Or those of Raquel Riba Rossy,
'Lola Vendetta. A room of her own with wifi'.
Henar Álvarez is part of a generation of female authors
who know that if they kiss a frog, it will remain a frog.
She is behind the script for the comic 'La mala leche'.
An irreverent autofiction that corroborates
that love is a scam."
I think romantic love is an absolute ripoff
and a scam especially for us.
I think romantic love is the mechanism they've found
for us to voluntarily resign
to have a professional life and to decide
by ourselves, without seeming
that no one pressures us to dedicate ourselves to care
of our family full time.
So, yeah, it's a super scam.
"La mala leche" is a book about female desire.
I realized, when I became a mother, that I had my son at the age of 31,
that my way of wishing had changed substantially.
When I was young, what mattered to me
was to be desired, for someone to look at me
and I felt that he liked it.
That was enough for me.
Sure, that's how he ended up with some tremendous paintings.
Once I was a mother, I already had my son,
I already had a stable family, that's when I started to look
and i began to realize that beauty is on the inside
sometimes, but outside too.
And it always seems that women try to find
That they have something else, that they fill us up, as we usually say.
It's like: "Maybe they'll fill you in on their own,
and if it's good, that's good too."
Well, I think the big issues I deal with in the book
are frustration,frustration management
or non-management.
I think also, well, female desire, of course,
is present all the time.
And I think it somehow shows up too,
I don't know whether to call it vindication,
but what women when we finish...
It's like not motherhood being a mother.
That being a mother is not just being a mother.
It is no longer becoming "the mother of",
you can still have life.
You can still have desire, even having lovers.
I think that shows up as well.
The book is very much autobiographical
in the story I tell.
So, the truth is that I wanted to tell
what was happening to me, I wanted to tell
how when no one is supposed to take it for granted
that you still have sexual desire
when you just became a mother, how my life
or my way of thinking in this sense,
changed radically. So, I wanted to tell it.
# I came to tell the story.
# How that man poisoned me.
"Sometimes a love story can turn into a horror story.
Detect toxic relationships during adolescence
is one of the themes
from the latest novel by Chiki Fabregat.
Awarded with the 2021 Wide Angle Award."
# Ill wishes, there is no hope.
"Nobody's Chest" is the story of Nadia,
a girl who was born in Kenya,
she was adopted at birth and lives in Madrid,
and has no ties to Kenya, nor its origins.
And by chance, it takes five days
with another girl he doesn't know at all.
Within the novel there is a toxic relationship
and there are many that are not; the character who suffers
he is the most open, confident, most positive character
of the entire novel; I also wanted to fight against the topic
that toxic relationships always attack
to the weakest people or with less strength of character.
They have a relationship
in which one ends up trying to control
100% to the other.
I don't think youth literature is a self-help book.
Not a good practice guide on how to deal with it
to toxic relationships, or anything in general.
But yes, many times, we are immersed
in a toxic relationship and we are not aware.
Whereas when other people are there, we do see it.
And if youth literature combined with television series
or the movies show those relationships,
readers can identify them and realize
who are in a relationship that is not healthy for them.
"Other youth literature news
and which also explores love relationships,
with 'Not in a thousand years would I let you down',
by Gemma Lienas, who tells us about her experiences,
some heartbreaking, from three friends
during an intense course.
And the tales of 'The Great Awakening',
by Julia Armfield, in which combining genres
such as horror, science fiction, and fantasy,
we see how today's youth
They handle themselves in various love situations."
And a curiosity.
Is it known how much money this man has swindled?
Sure, he's been tried several times.
But is there an approximate number or is nothing known?
Courtically accredited, the total amount of money
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that can be proven in court
that he has cheated, around a million euros.
What happens is that there are only people who have denounced it.
Okay.The people you've scammed
there are many more.
Then, he, in a private conversation,
one of the victims is told that he has stolen, that he has cheated
3 million euros; I'm sure
that we are getting much closer to 3 million euros
than a million euros.
It is true that scams are numerous, numerous.
But what must be highlighted here is the pain of the victims.
Let's not forget about that.
That is, what is it that mainly causes them.
If we can put ourselves in the shoes of the victims,
especially of women who have been seduced and cheated,
we will realize that what they have lived is, perhaps,
the most terrifying thing that can happen to us.
Let's imagine that our husband, that our wife,
our partner, that did not exist, that it was a lie.
The blow is brutal.
And later, they tell you that there have been moments
in those who may have suspected him.
But he goes into a phase of denial
because when you're in that relationship,
Being able to accept that everything is a lie is something that is so scary
that you don't want to see.
What's really traumatic isn't the money it takes from you.
That's how he took it from you. Sure.
And that is something that justice has never taken into account.
Its field of action covers all of Spain.
Yes, he had great mobility. He moved around
all over Spain swindling. If you look closely,
all the professions he has chosen,
Formula 1 driver,Iberia driver,
technical member of Barça,
They are professions that allow justifying large absences.
That is, the women with whom he had formed
an alleged sentimental relationship,
they understood that, for example, he was there every two weeks
a week away; that time that is away,
he uses it to be with other victims.
And scrolls thanks to dating apps
all over Spain; there are complaints in Andalusia,
in Valencia, in Catalonia, in Galicia, in Madrid.
Castile and Leon.
There are complaints everywhere.
Where is he now? He's in jail.
Has it been a while now? Since the "mossos" arrested you
in the Ciutat Esportiva, in March 2017,
he goes to jail first, to return the years
that he had not served a sentence.
He ran away, right? Sure, he runs away
from the Burgos prison in 2015,
He is in third grade and is going to Catalonia.
And in 2017 he is arrested again.
So, you have to go back to jail to pay back these years
and there all the judgments catch him
for crimes committed in Catalonia,
that there are eight women who have denounced it
and they have won the eight trials against him.
So, now you'll have to, first, pay back what's pending.
more every year for the scams of the last era.
So, he still has years in prison.
"For fraud, Miguel de Cervantes was also in prison.
They say that he wrote 'Don Quixote' there.
Although, if we stop to look at the list of imprisoned writers,
persecuted, or even sentenced to death,
It will always be for your ideas.
PEN is an acronym for poets, essayists and novelists.
This is an organization born in London in 1921.
And that is currently present in more than 100 countries.
Aims to protect freedom of expression
and promote the fundamental rights of writers.
Recently, the PEN has published the annual report
with the cases they have studied in 2020.
The data is chilling.
44 female writers prosecuted, threatened and imprisoned.
32 journalists killed. And in total, 220 attacks
against the freedom of writers.
For example, the Iranian poet Sedigeh Vasmaghi
faces six years in prison for criticizing
police brutality in his country.
Ugandan Kakwenza Rukirabashaija
he was arrested and tortured for a novel
which deals with corruption in high places.
Or Turkish publisher and activist Osman Kavala,
He faces a life sentence.
These are just three examples of the many
which add to this sinister list.
According to the PEN, currently, the five countries
with the most writers in prison are: 18 in Belarus.
19 in Iran, 25 in Türkiye.
32 in Saudi Arabia, 81 in China.
This year PEN celebrates 100 years watching over
for freedom of expression, and offering protection
to writers and writers at risk."
Francisco Gómez Manzanares scammed one of his latest victims
telling him they're setting up a fancy shop here,
in this glamorous Paseo de Gracia, Barcelona,
where I assure you that I will not deceive you,
but quite the opposite.
I want to recommend three wonderful books.
The first one,"Something I wanted to tell you",
of the Nobel Prize for Literature,Alice Munro.
Here he gives us 13 unpublished stories in Spanish
with a good dose of melancholy, sordid moments,
of intense relationships; come on, of that whole world of Munro
that so enchants us.
Let's travel now to the French capital
during World War II
because it's time to read "The Library of Paris".
A novel starring a brave woman.
A librarian on a mission.
Safeguardingsome very special books
before they fall into the hands of the Nazis.
It is, without a doubt, a great literary adventure
in every way.
We love being around books.
That's why, when someone told us about a 16-volume saga,
we got long teeth.
I'm referring to the Whiteoak saga,
A true classic of Canadian literature.
If you enter it, you will meet a family
who lives on the shores of Lake Ontario,
and book after book, you will see how they grow,
how they multiply and we with them.
What attracts a lot of attentionreading the book
is that Francisco, or David, is capable of even selling
a ship that doesn't have a fellow prisoner.
I mean, he had an amazing face.
It is true that among many scams that we are seeing
throughout this work of yours,
The real estate issue is perhaps the most recurrent.
Well, it's the fattest package in the scam assortment.
that he prepares, because in the end, he always designs
A scam for every victim.
He makes a tailor-made suit according to the wishes he detects
in his objective, the real estate scam.
The apartment is the fattest, the thing that has procured the most money.
And it is something that is closely linked to sentimental fraud.
To seduction. Sure.
These are flats that women buy because they believe
what are the houses where they will share life
with the one they think is their partner.
You send a letter to David in prison
with six questions for him to answer.
A letter that never has an answer.
I'm going to propose something to you.
I'd like to ask you those questions,
I think you're the person who knows him best.
You've done a lot of research,
You've talked to a lot of people close to him.
I would like to know your opinion regarding those questions.
The first thing you do is:
your relationships, was it all a lie or was there some truth?
What do you think?
I think it was all a lie, I think from minute one,
I saw them as an economic objective.
And that she wasn't afraid to fake an entire relationship.
That he had no problem with being intimate without feeling anything.
And this was what hurt them the most, what worried them the most.
Much more than the money he stole from them.
The fact of realizing or having to accept,
Many have not been able to, because he had never felt anything.
I think he never felt anything for them, he was never in love.
It also has to do with this second question
that you sent him, and it was if you think he was aware of the pain
that he provoked with his lies.
I think not, I think he was unaware
because since he saw them as an economic objective,
and to get to them, he disguised himself,
somehow, he believed they had fallen in love
of a disguise and that it also discredited
what they felt for him; in this way, he shielded himself.
The third question you send is:
Do you think he regrets anything?
Do you think he regrets anything?
I think not because he has introduced himself,
in the end, a bit of what we are seeing
is that he considers himself a victim of everything.
A victim is someone who has no choice but to act as they do.
Of course. He is someone who is legitimized
to make these kinds of decisions,
because in the end, he perceives his environment, the world in which he lives,
as something hostile that must be defended against.
And he sees women as evil people
who have the right to defraud, and even,
You have a right, why not? to enjoy doing it.
The fourth question.
Why did he choose that life?
if she felt more comfortable with David than with Francisco.
To me this is the question
that if I could have chosen one to answer me,
I wish it was this one.
And I think so, I think in the end,
among court rulings,
there is only one that, moreover, is at the beginning of everything,
which is the one in Vitoria, in which a magistrate tells her
who has multiple conduct disorder.
But that cannot be a complete defense
because he has ultimate ability.
I mean, he knows what he's doing, but just before
that he begins to unfold into David,
before you start naming the character
that he has built, he is already detected
by a judge as someone who partly believes her lies.
This is a process that is getting worse.
A fantasy ball that is getting bigger.
And in the end, I think he feels better
inside this world you've created,
that in solitude; he prefers to be David than Francisco.
Another question you send him.
If you think when I get out of jail
will either try to reinsert itself or keep scamming again.
Sure, here...it's hard to tell.
It's very difficult to know. I would really like to
that it be reinserted and that it be rehabilitated
and even finally become aware
of the damage it has done, but if we listen
to the people who have suffered it, I have not found any
that he told me: "I think so, it can be cured, rehabilitated."
They all agree that he is like that
and that it will do the exact same thing again
what you've done so far when you get out.
The last question you send him is:
why did you decide to act that way?
Why do you think he did it?
I don't know. A little perhaps the doubt that we have is that...
In the end, the book gets as far as it can.
But it's a question
that I would very much like him to answer as well.
I think, in the end, we are all products of our childhood.
In the end, we do what we can throughout life
with the package that we have to load.
I think he, the package he had to carry,
he couldn't, and so, he left it
and he invented another life, which is the one he has decided to live.
So, I guess it has to do with that.
With those early years, we'll never know
exactly, unless you decide to count them,
what happened.
