Robin Banks

Infuriated by the debt-driven nature of the modern economy, Spanish Catalan Enric Duran came up with a truly novel idea — get himself massively into debt through a wide range of loans, and then give all the money away.

Over the course of two years, from 2006 to 2008, Duran obtained 68 different loans from almost 40 banks. None of the loans required collateral; the tools he used included a basic limited company with its own accounts, an impressive-looking contract of employment, and payment slips. The total that he borrowed over the course of the two years amounted to just a whisker under half a million Euros (about $750,000 US). The fees and charges involved in borrowing that sum — including building up his credit rating initially — took about a quarter of the cash.

Duran gave the great bulk of the money away to various charities and organisations dedicated to social activism and fighting debt. The rest was used to produce booklets detailing what he had done, and pointing out various options to participating in the global banking system. When news of his activities broke, some banks responded angrily. The director-general of the Caixa Sabadell savings bank, Jordi Mestre, declared that it was “not permissible for someone to laugh at the system like this.” Other banks chose disdain; Bankinter said “It [31,000 euros] won’t mean anything to us.”

Enric Duran

Duran was arrested for fraud in April ’09, and faces up to six years in prison. In his leaflet, he points out that many of his loans were obtained without any fraud, and that it was the scale — and publicity — of his actions which opened him up to imprisonment. He argues that the economic system itself, in which money is added to the system not through central bank printing but through debt creation, is inherently unfair.

How you feel about that is up to you of course, but Duran’s Robin Hood antics have made him a folk hero in Catalonia, and amongst economic reform activists world-wide.