Seven people have been arrested in Guadalajara by the National Police accused of swindling 365,000 euros from a neighbor from Ávila using Facebook.
The operation was launched in October 2021, when the victim filed a complaint at the Avila police station. According to CNP sources, the impostor had sent photos to the victim and once he gained his trust, he made him see that he was a special US security agent and that he worked for the UN in military intelligence. In addition, he convinced her that he was in Syria, where he had been injured in the leg, and told her that he had a significant amount of money that he wanted to get out of this country for fear that it would be taken from him, so he asked her to keep them, because he planned to come to Spain to meet her and recover from his injuries, he even suggested that with that money he would settle in Spain.
Once the victim accepted the request, a supposed security company contacted her and began to ask for different amounts of money to solve different procedures necessary for the box containing the money to be guarded to reach their possession.
Once the deception was achieved, the victim contributed the requested amounts, even requesting several credits, until she was warned by one of the banking entities that she could be the subject of a scam, at which time she filed the complaint at the Avila Police Station.
After a laborious investigation, the agents have managed to fully identify the authors of the scam, who resided in Guadalajara, where they were arrested.
In order to carry out the deception successfully, the scammers took advantage of profiles opened by the victim on social networks to obtain photos, names and other information of interest in order to put together a credible story. In addition, the cybercriminals previously collected the information that consisted of her on the Internet, so in this way and knowing something about the victim, they were able to better target the messages they sent to gain her trust.
