National Police agents have arrested 59 members of a criminal organization allegedly dedicated to scams through the “son in distress” method that would have obtained an economic benefit of more than 460,000 euros. Among those arrested are five people who were part of the leadership of the organization as well as supervisors and recruiters. Through the WhatsApp application they sent messages posing as the children of the future victims, urgently requesting money to cover an emergency.
The investigation, which has had the collaboration of the anti-fraud group of a banking entity, began following the receipt of numerous complaints from victims, distributed throughout the national territory, in which they stated that they had suffered this type of scam.
The deception of this organization consisted of contacting future victims through WhatsApp, pretending to be their children and claiming to have a damaged mobile phone as an excuse for calling from a number unknown to the victim, and requesting a bank transfer through that message. alluding to different urgent problems.
Within the organization there was a well-defined structure, with members who were dedicated to analyzing the social networks of the possible children of the victims. When they found young people who were outside their town of residence, generally because they were studying outside of Spain, they collected all possible data to make the conversation they would have with them more credible for the purpose of carrying out the scam.
Once all the data had been collected, they found a way to contact the parents of the young people and, after claiming to be experiencing an emergency situation, they asked the relatives to provide them with money immediately to get out of a very complicated situation.
Previously, the organization had recruited “mules” who became the recipients of the transfers once the scam materialized and, in exchange, they received a percentage of the defrauded money. Subsequently, these mules would give the bulk of the transfer to the collectors, which would be distributed among the criminal organization. The agents have confirmed that they would have obtained a financial benefit of more than 460,000 euros and that, in addition, the organization used various techniques that they used to eliminate the trace of money sent by the victims.
Once the agents located the alleged perpetrators, most of them in towns in Girona and Barcelona, ??the arrest of the 59 members of the criminal organization was carried out in Salt, Olot, Girona, Banyoles, Barcelona, ??Granollers, Hospitalet of Llobregat, Premià de Mar and Mollet. Among those arrested were three recruiters from the organization who were in charge, each in their locality, of recruiting young people between 20 and 30 years old to carry out these scams or also to act as “mules”, that is, to receive the money swindled from the victim in exchange for financial compensation from the organization, and in this way, making it difficult to trace the money and the identity of the fraudsters.
The network of “mules” would form the lowest echelon, the most numerous, responsible for receiving the fraudulent money from the scams and withdrawing the funds in cash to send them to the rest of the members of the organization.
The “mules” would have been introduced into the organization by recruiters located at a higher echelon who had previously played that role to later be promoted by the organization in exchange for recruiting new members. Above these would be the supervisors who were in charge of coordinating and collecting all the money coming from the scams.
Among those arrested, the agents were able to find out that three of them were in charge of supervising the criminal organization, distributing tasks among the recruiters and other members of the criminal network, in addition to accumulating and distributing the defrauded money.
During the operation, an inspection was carried out at a location in the Barcelona town of Granollers where young people were recruited to be used as “mules” and a search was carried out at the home of the person responsible for the organization in that town.
The National Police wants to emphasize that the main fight against this type of crime begins with prevention by the citizen, setting out below a series of tips to avoid being victims of this type of scam:
• Try to contact your child through another means other than WhatsApp, and if it is not possible, ask a family member or friend.
• Be suspicious of the language or expressions of the person who writes to us
• If you have been a victim of the scam, go to the National Police offices or call 091.
