Unprecedented operation of the VIII Operational Group of the Provincial Immigration Brigade. With the collaboration of Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency and Europol, they have disrupted the largest network of Nigerian letters at the international level. The epicenter was in a copy shop in Fuenlabrada and in Parla, sources in the case specify. There are 80 detainees, most of them from Nigeria, and 53 simultaneous searches have been carried out (Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga and Santander), involving more than 500,000 dollars and 30,000 euros. They had branches in the UK and Mexico. It is suspected that there are a thousand victims, most of them retirees from the US.
The Brooklyn operation began at the end of 2019 when agents detected packages from North America with large amounts of money hidden inside magazines.
The ‘modus operandi’ consisted of entrusting the mass printing of the letters to the copy shop, simulating lottery or other prizes, as well as unclaimed family inheritances. Among so many shipments, there were always suckers who bit. Although others were written ‘ad hoc’ to some.
They moved to the Portuguese country with huge suitcases –in private tourism or on public buses– to send them en masse, since the cost of the service was lower than that offered by Spanish companies. The researchers calculated that the approximate cost in all the letters sent could amount to half a million euros.
The victims contacted the telephone number that appeared on the letters and carried out a small questionnaire to find out their purchasing power, tricking them until they believed that they had been the lucky ones. They were informed that in order to claim the prize they had to pay an initial amount for fees and taxes of between 1,000 and 30,000 euros.
The organization had a system of concealment of the benefit consisting of ordering its victims to remit the supposed payment of the fees by means of a transfer to another possible victim. They made her believe that she was being lent so that she could complete her payment. Thus, she borrowed the money and, together with what she could collect, she sent it in cash to a third party, also a victim, who in turn sent it to a member of the organization in Spain, who was the final recipient. The money was hidden in magazines or catalogs. Then, they sent it to their country of origin through ‘mules’, hiding it in luggage or on money cards.
The investigation culminated on April 27 in Madrid with the arrest of 80 people (61 in Spain, 16 in Portugal and 3 in the United Kingdom) and with 53 searches (24 in Spain, 26 in Portugal and 3 in the United Kingdom), in those who have seized 30,000 euros, more than 50,000 dollars, 200 telephone terminals, computers and vehicles.
Those arrested by the Immigration Brigade were handed over to the judicial authority as allegedly responsible for the crimes of fraud, document falsification, money laundering and belonging to a criminal organization.
