The Guardia Civil has arrested in Barcelona, through operation ‘Fretus’, six people who formed an organisation specialised in fraud by means of telephone ‘spoofing’ and ‘smishing’ that have harmed at least 60 people in the Balearic Islands.
The detainees allegedly obtained about 1.5 million euros from the scams, as reported from the armed institute this Friday in a press release.
Thus, in the islands have been received during this year numerous complaints on alert to the Technological Crime Team of the Guardia Civil in the province, which began to analyze and investigate this type of scams.
The Guardia Civil has determined that the six people involved were highly skilled and specialized in deceiving victims through fake phone calls, using advanced manipulation techniques.
Modus operandi
Initially, thethe criminals used the well-known ‘smishing’ scam by sending an SMS message impersonating the bank as the sender of the messages.
They alerted the victims of unauthorized access to their accounts and required them to immediately verify these transactions through a link that directed them to a web page identical to that of their bank, which was controlled by the cybercriminals in order to obtain the access data to the bank accounts.
The supposed bank agent always called himself ‘Alex Garcia’with such activity and repercussion that even press articles had been published alerting about his deceitful identity.
A new method
On the other hand, since the criminals needed the security codes that the bank sends to the account holder’s cell phone to authorize each operation, the organization used a novel technique called caller id spoofing if the injured parties did not fall for the scam with the first SMS.
They managed to impersonate the real phone number of the bank branch, calling the injured parties, who were alerted of the fraudulent transactions in their account and asked for the security codes they had just received by SMS for the false cancellation of such transactions, thus completing the deception and consummating the scam.
‘Vishing’
When the cybercriminals failed to carry out the scam, they continued to impersonate the victims by means of voice calls to the banks to make money transfersin another criminal modality known as ‘vishing’where the medium used for the deception is the voice telephone call.
So far, about 60 victims have been identified in the Balearic Islands, although there is knowledge of people affected in several provinces. In total, it is estimated that the gang exceeded 1.5 million euros swindled.
During the investigation, the specialists were able to block fraudulent transactions amounting to 200.000 eurosthe money was returned to the accounts of the swindled persons. In addition, electronic devices and other key elements from which the perpetrators operated were seized in the house searches.
Likewise, a high-end vehicle was seized, valued at 50.000 euros which had been paid in cryptocurrencies by the leader of the organization.
The detainees are six people, two of them minors, all young people between the ages of 16 and 22. The four adults have been remanded in custody. The investigation remains open with the aim of making further arrests.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.