Almost 100 people arrested in bank scam scheme that netted nearly 1.2 million euros from victims in Malaga

The fraudsters, who were scattered throughout Spain, acted by impersonating the victims' banks

SUR

Malaga

Tuesday, 23 July 2024, 16:28

The Guardia Civil has dismantled a criminal organisation dedicated to committing bank fraud with the arrest of 100 people and 151 others under investigation. Most of them are young people between 18 and 25 years old and residents in 39 provinces around Spain who acted by impersonating the victims' banks in order to defraud them. In the province of Malaga alone, nearly 1.2 million euros have been swindled from more than 320 victims.

In Barcelona, the operation has resulted in 79 arrests with 46 people under investigation. In the case of Madrid, investigators have arrested a total of 17 alleged fraudsters, and are investigating a further 17. The provinces involved also include Girona (11 under investigation), Malaga, Tarragona and Lleida, with eight investigated in each.

Guardia Civil officers discovered that there was a common link between all of the scams. The criminals impersonated the telephone number of a specific bank (spoofing), from which they sent SMS to its customers (smishing) and then made phone calls posing as bank employees in order to gain access to the bank account of the victims and then make purchases and money transfers without their consent.

Although the technical profile of the members of the organisation was not particularly high, the deception of the victims, from whom they would not have obtained the access credentials to their online accounts without their explicit consent, was fundamental for its members.

The criminals gained access to the victims' accounts in two steps: In the first step, those affected received an SMS with a fake link to their bank's website. Victims accessed this link, which actually led to a fraudulent website.

Subsequently, as a second step, after a reasonable period of time had passed, the victims who had accessed the fraudulent link received a phone call from a modified phone number that made them think that it belonged to the bank.

The criminals posed as an employee of the bank and, after gaining the victim's trust with the excuse of solving the security problems they were led to believe they had, asked them for the verification codes needed to make transfers, consummating the scam.

323 victims in Malaga

This method has led to the theft of almost 1.2 million euros from at least 323 victims in the province of Malaga alone. The group had a structure with people assigned different tasks, from the 'mules' in charge of receiving the first transfers from the victims through the creation of bank accounts, to the members in charge of recruiting collaborators, managing the commissions and organising the movement of the swindled money until it was laundered.

The stolen money ended up in offshore accounts or invested in crypto-assets. In total, 472 bank accounts and 708 telephone lines were analysed, the vast majority of which were set up with false data or usurped identities.

According to the Guardia Civil, almost all of the reported crimes have been cleared up, identifying a total of 422 perpetrators with varying degrees of participation within the organisation.

So far, 100 people have been arrested and a further 151 investigated for the crimes of belonging to a criminal organisation, fraud and money laundering. The operation has been carried out by the @ Team belonging to the Guardia Civil in Malaga, which has had the support of the different police stations in the 39 provinces in which the operation has been carried out.

Top 50

Esta funcionalidad es exclusiva para registrados.

Reporta un error en esta noticia