Despite their young age, they already had the technique and experience to trap their victims.
To weave the web, these hackers used a “ghost” telephone number to send SMS messages by the thousands to customers of operators whose contact details they managed to recover.
This phishing technique allowed them to obtain personal and banking information from a dozen victims in the Paris region, for a total loss of 35,000 euros.
Except that the soldiers who were after them also have know-how and traced them back.
And after an investigation lasting several months, the Fontainebleau gendarmerie company arrested the team of criminals domiciled in a sensitive city in Val-d'Oise.
It only takes 1% of answers for them to win
It all started with a complaint filed by a victim at the Cély-en-Bière brigade last July.
Then another at La Chapelle-la-Reine.
The Fontainebleau research brigade is seized of the investigation by the Melun public prosecutor's office.
Little by little, the soldiers manage to decipher the perfectly well-established modus operandi of the criminals.
“They sent nearly 85,000 SMS messages to numbers to report either a problem with the Ameli account, or to alert of a problem with the bank,” says a person close to the case.
Victims were invited to click on a link which redirected them to a site which asked for their contact details.
All it takes is 1% of people to respond and the scammers win.
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More than 60 gendarmes to arrest seven suspects
The thugs then sent a fake courier to their prey to come and collect the bank cards with their codes, allegedly corrupted.
Then they would make withdrawals from ATMs, buy from restaurants or even shop online or in stores.
Between July and September, a dozen people in the Paris region fell into the trap.
Thanks to the investigations, seven suspects, including two minors, were identified.
On January 12, more than 60 gendarmes, from numerous brigades, the department's surveillance and intervention platoons as well as other external units, headed to a town in Val-d'Oise to apprehend the band.
In the end, three of the five adults, aged around twenty, will be tried in February at the Melun criminal court for organized gang fraud.
Facts punishable by 10 years of imprisonment.
The case of minors is managed by a children's judge in Pontoise (Val-d'Oise).