In 2016, the Parliament of Catalonia He urged the Government to allocate the necessary resources to verify how Esteve’s company was acting. According to sources consulted by this newspaper, the Mossos d’Esquadra Desokupa was investigated for the supposed link with the extreme right of any of its members and also by possible constraints to the residents whom they tried to expel from houses that belonged to clients who had contracted their services.
The Division of Internal Affairs (DAI)At the same time, it also opened confidential information to analyze the alleged collusion of Desokupa members with Mossos agents with whom they coincided in evictions. A suspicion that even forced Andrew Joan Martinez, then director of the Catalan police, to appear before the Catalan Chamber to clear it. There was no proven collusion between the police and Desokupa and it was not proven in the investigations of the Mossos that Esteve’s company committed crimes during his actions.
Controversy since birth
Emerged in Barcelona, it has expanded throughout the rest of Spain offering its services to occupied homeowners They don’t wait for justice. Since his birth, Desokupa, a company that sends burly men into squats to intimidate squatters, has flirted with the media, a loudspeaker that has skyrocketed his popularity. Some private television channels have presented an uncritical view of his interventions, which Esteve defends as archangelic rescues of owners besieged by heartless squatters –almost always migrants–.
Other media outlets have revealed that behind some of these actions there are real hoaxes: like the one about the 90-year-old woman who couldn’t get her apartment back because her caregiver, a Moroccan, of course, had taken it. The reality that Esteve’s company ignored despite knowing it from the National Policeaccording to ‘El País’, was that the old woman was illegally subletting a room to the young Moroccan, who was also paying the woman triple what she paid for the entire home thanks to an old rent.
The limit of coercion
Esteve, interviewed by this newspaper shortly after Desokupa’s appearance, detailed how they acted during their “operations.” What they do, he remarked, is “negotiate” with the squatters “a price” for them to agree to leave. If they agree, they sign a document with Desokupa in which they attest that they have received the agreed amount. As soon as they walk out the door, Esteve workers place an alarm connected to a security company and change the lock. Sometimes, they even install an ‘antiokupa’ door that completely shields the access. The entire sequence, starring men who look like NFL players, is filmed “for security.”
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That is perhaps the most questionable part of his activity: Is there or is there no coercion when the squatter is surrounded by robust Desokupa members who point video cameras at him as he opens the door? Esteve justifies the corpulence of his employees by alluding to the aggressiveness of some of the squatters.
It is not the first time that Esteve has been criticized for using force. Before forming Desokupa, he was investigated for leading an expeditious group of debt collections, a case that he ended up filing. His motto is “always strong”.