Agents of the National Police have arrested five men between the ages of 23 and 44 in two operations against cyber scams as alleged perpetrators of the crimes of fraud and identity theft. Those arrested sent massive text messages to mobile phones posing as a bank and a shopping center in order to obtain data from the victims and use them to defraud.
In these two operations, more than 35,000 euros have been seized, 22 cards from different banks, five mobile phones, two SIM cards, five laptops, 56 used SIM holders, as well as 10 caps that the detainee wore whenever he carried out extractions in ATMs to avoid being recognized, the National Police has detailed in a statement.
The first of the operations carried out by the Cybercrime Group of the National Police in Valencia began at the end of March, after a man was identified in a routine control by showing an elusive attitude towards the police presence. In his possession he had two bank cards in other people’s names. The man told the agents that he had found them, although they suspected that he could be dedicating himself to fraud through the ‘smishing’ modality.
This type of scam consists of sending massive text messages to mobile phones, in this case simulating to come from a well-known bank and in which it was stated that the account “has been temporarily blocked for security reasons”, along with a link to verify the identity of the user.
The victims, believing that they received the SMS from their bank, accessed the false link and entered the requested data, such as names and surnames, passwords, passwords and PIN to access their online account.
With this data, the arrested person pretended to be a client of the entity and accessed the victims’ accounts through mobile applications and thus requested bank cards that were sent to false addresses, where he collected them and used them to buy products that were easy to get out of. the black market, such as high-end phones and laptops, as well as bitcoin cards and ATM withdrawals.
Finally, the police have established a surveillance device on the investigated that has made it possible to locate his address in Alboraya (Valencia). In addition, the agents have verified that the man moved from there to three different ATMs in Valencia and Alboraya to make different money withdrawals. For all these reasons, he has been arrested as the alleged perpetrator of the crimes of fraud and identity theft.
At the time of the arrest, two bank cards were seized in the name of clients of two banking entities and that had been obtained by ‘smishing’, and whose owners were unaware of their existence.
In a second operation, whose investigations began last April, the National Police has arrested four men who, through the ‘smishing’ modality, took over the purchase card data of a well-known shopping center.
Later, they used them to buy items that were easy to sell, such as computer or telephone components, which they acquired through the digital platform of the commercial establishment to later sell them at a low price through an anonymous messaging application that was difficult to trace.
One of those arrested was in charge of obtaining the information in public Internet databases to, through digital applications, falsify the IDs with which they obtained the cards that they later used for purchases.
The circumstance arises that in this type of crime, the deliveries of the purchased products were not made at the address provided by the suspects, but rather they waited for the delivery men in the vicinity of the delivery point, in order to promote a casual meeting to that the merchandise be delivered to them on the street, the National Police has detailed.
This, together with techniques of anonymity on the Internet, made the task of the investigators “greatly” difficult, who have finally clarified facts reported in different parts of Spain such as Gijón, Cádiz, Málaga and Valencia.
The detainees, four of them with police records, have gone to court.
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