The phone rings. “Good morning, shall I speak to Milagros? I’m calling you from the fraud and prevention service. A security alert has gone off and there is currently a pending withdrawal of 280 euros.” Milagros does not suspect: the number and name of your bank appear on the screen of your mobile. But you are about to be a victim of one of the most sophisticated telephone scams that have been detected in Spain.
With this method, a legion of 50 teleoperators posing as bank employees achieved their objective: that their interlocutor, frightened by what seemed to be a security breach in their account, will provide you with the security codewhich reaches the mobile phone, necessary in operations to withdraw money without a card. Thus they managed to deceive 10,000 victims and defraud 3 million euros.
The organization, professionalized in the criminal modality of vishinghas recently been dismantled in a joint operation and simultaneous between the national police of Spain and Peru and the Interior Attaché Office, the two countries from which the criminal group carried out the deceptions.
On December 3, agents arrested 83 people of Peruvian nationality, 35 of them in Madrid – of which 11 were in an irregular situation -, Vigo, Barcelona, Mallorca and Salamanca and another 48 in Peru. In the operation, information related to the scams, cash and mobile phones.
In Peru, police officers also dismantled three offices call center from where they made calls to potential victims, in which surprised red-handed to 50 people with the phone in his hand.
Divided into two cells
The network was divided into two cells: the army of teleoperators based in the South American country, subject to a schedule and in charge of deceiving bank customersand a battalion of ‘mules’ who extracted money from victims in Spain after obtaining the necessary security codes.
From the Latin American country, the members of the network obtained sensitive information about the victims in databases and They harassed them with thousands of calls daily in which they proposed suspicious movements of money that, in reality, did not exist. Its objectives were elderly clients from banks such as CaixaBank, BBVA, Santander, Bankinter, Sabadell or Unicaja, according to sources close to the investigation.
Thousands of calls from Peru
The criminal group masked their phone numbers – a technique called spoofing and managed to get the name and official customer service number of the bank to which they belonged to appear on the victims’ mobile screen. The reason for the calls, made from three centers located in Lima, was to alert victims of an alleged fraudulent charge for which, for security reasons, the account had been blocked.
To reverse the situation, the fake bank employees They guided them in the necessary steps to be done through your bank applications. After manipulating them and promising to report the incident to the police, they managed to get users to provide them with a security code with which they would apparently solve the problem.
However, the key they were revealing was the culmination of the scam: was the security number required to make money withdrawals without a card at the ATM. This pin was bounced from Peru to the ‘mules’ of Spain, who wandered at street level through areas with several bank branches. When the number arrived, They got between 100 and 200 euros from the victim’s account.
Between 20 and 30% of the sum was kept by those who executed the banking provisions in Spain, while the rest was transferred to Peru through companies dedicated to sending cash. In Madrid, the provisions were made from the districts of Carabanchel and Puente de Vallecas and also from the municipality of Móstoles.
1,479 money transfers
The criminal network made a total of 1,479 money transfers for a sum approximately 1.4 million euros to Peruwhich were received by the leaders of the organization, while their direct participation in the commission of scams worth 1.6 million euros has been proven.
Furthermore, to overcome the time difference between Peru and Spain, the teleoperators, who engineered the scam from individual cubicles equipped with the necessary material, they got up at dawn and they worked from seven in the morning to two in the afternoon during Spanish time. Besides, they followed a script to the letter with which they presented themselves as members of the banks’ fraud and prevention department and anticipated the victims’ responses.
“The reason for my call is that we have received a security alert. There is currently a pending withdrawal of 280 euros through the mobile cash operation. It is very likely that this person has violated your data and is having access to your account at this time,” can be read in one of the documents seized by the police.
Spirits could not waver. For this reason, their superiors sent them motivational messages in which they, in turn, offered them premiums of up to 100 Peruvian soles -about 25 euros– for being punctual or avoiding absenteeism.
“Good afternoon guys, we are 3 Sundays away from Christmas, nothing is missing, so get your act together, positive mind and always good spirits“Only the bravest reach the end, so let’s get the most out of it,” said one of the intercepted texts. The Spanish cell had five leaders distributed between Madrid and Barcelona and a legion of 37 bleachersall of them of Peruvian origin and generally without priors.
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