Electricity fraud in Barcelona has reached the point where you no longer have to look for it in an apartment with a cannabis garden: you have it, in a supermarket that opens at three in the morning to sell you some tampons or ice packs. On October 29, the city council inspected 23 24-hour supermarkets in Vila de Gracia and ordered 11 precautionary closures, according to El Periodico. Nine of them had a leaky light or some other anomaly in the supply. Oh, and the other three had bugs.
Operation with guests. This action, formulated in the Endreça Plan, brought together a hundred workers: Urban Guard, Municipal Technicians, Work Inspection, Tax Agency, National Police and beware, Endreça itself. The first deputy mayor, Laia Bonnet, has defended this massive operation because it allows for expert advice and visits with staff who don’t just belong to the city council.
242 violation. According to 3Cat, 99 are from activity licences, 52 from urban landscape, 23 from public health and another 23 from waste. There are also 10 workers, five public roads and 30 tributaries (15 municipalities and 15 states). Bonnet succinctly states that this model is “throwing out traditional commerce” and changing the city’s identity. This is the seventeenth macro-inspection under this same mandate: since November 2023, 682 institutions have been reviewed with 5,097 violations and 110 precautionary measures.
Frozen license (some) In May, the city council suspended new 24-hour supermarket licenses for a year because of the “monoculture” that Mayor Colboni condemned. About 1,300 are granted. Still, I can guarantee that several have opened in recent weeks because I’ve seen them, some with licenses before the suspension and others without, like the old Ona bookstore in Gran de Gracia, which will close soon.
previous In December 2025, Operation Nihari discovered that 24 out of 26 supermarkets visited in six districts, including Gracia, were using electricity that did not go through the meter. The fraud amounted to 2.85 million kilowatt hours, the annual consumption of 814 homes. Many were franchisees of well-known chains, and at that time the Civil Guard opened a case against 26 people.
From Indoor Cultivation to Showcase. Until now, the face of illegal hooking has been cannabis cultivation, a topic we’ve discussed on several occasions at Xataka. According to Endesa, an average indoor plantation costs the equivalent of 80 homes, and over five years, its network subsidiary dismantles about 10,600 electrical installations. Spain concentrates 73% of cannabis seizures in the EU, and from there come stories like renting a villa in Madrid and converting it into an indoor one with 391 plants, or buying a house in Castellón without knowing it had a garden inside.
The problem is… well, the problem isn’t going away. Endesa detects 72,700 frauds in 2025, the highest number in five years; The capital city of Barcelona had 5,487 cases, 891 more than in 2024. The CNMC estimates that these practices have increased the bill by around 150 million euros And of course, we all pay those euros.
Algorithm shows on Instagram. Distributors no longer wait for someone to file a complaint. E-Distribution, Endesor’s network subsidiary, uses machine learning and deep learning to detect anomalies and, according to eEXcellence, energy theft is found in one out of every two inspections, which is twice as many as in 2017. A few days ago we already told how its use of AI exceeded the data with videos of Barcelona, 16 large restaurant networks and influential networks established. Minimum cost, which does not match the influx.
Iberdrola? Its distributor, i-DE, has not publicly detailed such a specific case, but the company confirms that it has been using AI for more than ten years in more than 150 use cases. It also identifies non-technical losses, caused by connections or manipulated meters, as a problem it wants to tackle from its Smart Grid Innovation Centre. It funded the FRAC project, with which the Universidad Pontificia Comillas developed a neural network system to detect anomalies and fraud in consumer records.
What the law says. Electricity fraud is punishable by three to twelve months (Section 255 of the Penal Code), although the Prosecutor’s Office has already criticized the lack of harsher penalties. The 2026 reform added prisons, but only for growing marijuana, so a supermarket was omitted. Distributor may, however, stop supply and shipment with retroactive effect.
Because it’s not a question of porosity or trained AI. AI didn’t invent cheating, but it’s erasing that advantage for those who thought they could catch a flight or avoid the counter. Current closures are precautionary (and violations are presumed until files are resolved). What is clear is that 24-hour corners with their vending machines and dim electricity are numbering the days of those who don’t pay for electricity.
Picture | Flickr
In Xataka | Endesa uncovers electrical fraud at 16 restaurants in Barcelona thanks to AI and influencer campaigns
