Cybercrime continues to skyrocket in Spain. Despite the reinforcement that national and regional police forces have made in recent years with their online patrol sections, online crimes do not stop growing, constituting one of the biggest headaches in the Ministry of the Interior. According to the 2023 crime balance, made public this Thursday by the department headed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska, criminal offenses committed in cyberspace increased by 25.5% compared to last year. Conventional crime, on the other hand, increased by 2.1%.
Of all the crime recorded on the Internet during the past year, nine out of every ten criminal offenses correspond to computer scams. And these data, as confirmed by police sources, only represent a small tip of the iceberg, since the reporting of this type of crime is still minimal. Despite the lack of awareness among security forces and bodies, the data highlights the complexity – and magnitude – of the problem: in 2016, 70,178 computer scams were registered. In 2023 the figure already stood at 426,744. That is, in eight years they have grown 508%. On that curve, the year of the coronavirus marked a turning point.
Criminal organizations increasingly play their game on the Internet. They are diversifying the crime, but always with a common good: the data with which they can then fleece the victims. Some of them, according to police sources specialized in the prevention and prosecution of cybercrimes, are managers of not so small companies who do not dare to report for fear of admitting that they have been deceived from a relevant position. Computer scams, as reflected in the data, far exceed robberies of all types – with violence, intimidation, on the street or in homes – that occurred throughout the national territory.
By regions; Andalusia, the Valencian Community, Murcia and Euskadi are the territories where cybercrime is growing the most; compared to Asturias or Galicia, where it increased less, or La Rioja and Ceuta, where it even decreased last year.
The balance, which includes data from all national, regional and local police forces, also shows an increase of 15.1% in crimes against sexual freedom. In the Interior they defend that this increase must be framed in policies to raise awareness and reduce social and personal tolerance against this type of criminal acts, which translate into a greater willingness of victims to report them.
In the case of drug trafficking, which also increases to 9.5%, they say it is related to security plans such as the one deployed in Campo de Gibraltar, since in this criminal phenomenon “very few complaints occur.” “This is an indicator of police activity against this type of crime,” they maintain.
