In 2022, a businessman from La Zubia (Granada, 19,593 inhabitants) received an email informing him that he had to reset the password for that
. They told him a link to click on, something he did and, without much problem, he changed his passwords. Five minutes later, he stopped having a mobile network on his phone. Alarmed, he entered his bank from his company computer and found that they had emptied his account, where he had 25,000 euros. His complaint initiated an investigation by the Civil Guard that, two years later, has ended with seven people arrested in Barcelona, Valencia and Zamora, in addition to Malaga. The leaders of an organization that has accumulated almost 3.4 million euros after defrauding at least 102 people in the same way resided in those provinces. Both have been sent to prison.
The leaders of the criminal group, of Venezuelan nationality, directed the operations in the city of Malaga, for which they had up to 74 collaborators in Venezuela. The system used to capture his victims was always the same. First, they sent an email and, through different formulas, encouraged numerous users to click on a fraudulent link. Once someone did it, the criminal network's computer systems managed to make a duplicate of the phone card used by the victims to access their email accounts. “From there, they had control of the device,” explain sources from the Civil Guard. This allowed them to impersonate your identity on social networks, access passwords or request new ones. Especially digital banking, whose verification systems usually use SMS that reach the mobile phone, which in these cases the criminals already had under control.
With all this information, those now arrested could access the different services of those who were scammed. Among them their checking accounts, always with the aim of extracting as much money as possible, as they did in the case of the Granada businessman. They also used personal data to open new accounts in the victims' names, in some cases using the same identification up to 47 times. “Today there are places where you don't even need your DNI to do so and confirmation with the phone is enough,” say the same sources, who highlight that the scammers used them to request loans, contract telephone lines or make large purchases and launder the money they they got. On other occasions they also used mules, people who in exchange for a sum of money were in charge of making transfers of the swindled money to an account that the organization had in a bank in Miami.
The work carried out during these two years since the first complaint - although it is believed that there are previous cases - has been complicated, due to the difficulty of investigating emails, bank accounts or foreign telephone numbers, as reported by the Civil Guard. Also due to the “complex computer system” developed by the criminal gang, which had allowed them to obtain a loot of almost 3.4 million euros. The same sources assure that the investigation has served to clarify 102 crimes, but also that the victims are "many more." This type of crime originated in the United States and, since 2015, has been a recurring fraud in Spain, where it has gained relevance over the years, according to specialists from the armed institute.
Those responsible have finally been arrested in Barcelona, Valencia, Zamora and Málaga. The two ringleaders resided in the Andalusian city, in whose homes the agents have seized two laptops, six mobile phones, two bank cards, two cryptocurrency cards, documentation and a cryptocurrency wallet. After being brought to justice, they have been sent to prison.
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