Alex Trelinski
30 VICTIMS in Alicante province have been defrauded out of €256,000 in a bank text message con.
15 people of different nationalities in the Barcelona area have been arrested plus a detainee in Alicante.
38 bank accounts used by mules working for the gang were blocked.
READ MORE:
- Hundreds of bank accounts hijacked by €1.9 million cyber scam with 1,000 phone text messages sent per minute to fool victims in Spain
- Scammers made €133k by sending bogus texts to get personal bank details from victims in Spain
The Guardia Civil launched Operation Fake Link to bring down the fraudsters after a Callosa de Segura resident complained of a suspicious text message sent allegedly by his bank.
It warned him of untoward activity on his account and included a link to a cloned bank website where personal information was requested.
The scammers used those details to move to the second stage of their con.
They phoned victims posing as bank staff to convince them to make a ‘secure’ transfer to a protected account.
That account belonged to a ‘mule’ working for the crew who made ATM withdrawals and then passed on money to them in return for a commission.
The criminals did not waste any time to avoid accounts being frozen.
Withdrawals happened in less than two hours from a victim entering their details into a bogus website.
Cash was then converted into cryptocurrencies through platforms that did not need verification.
Click here to read more Costa Blanca News from The Olive Press.
