(CNN) Spanish police have arrested two care home owners who allegedly defrauded and abused elderly people in their care.

Officers rescued two elderly people who had been kept in a "house of horrors" by a Cuban-German couple who ran a private care home in Chiclana de la Frontera, near Cadiz in southern Spain, the Guardia Civil said in a statement.

The couple are accused of stealing 1.8 million euros ($2.02 million) from five victims over four years.

An investigation, known as Operation Teydea, resulted in the rescue of a Dutch woman and a German man who were kept locked up and fed through unnecessary nasogastric tubes, said the Guardia Civil.

Inquiries began when police from Frankfurt am Main in Germany contacted the Spanish force to ask for information about 101-year-old German citizen Maria Babes.

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