The Civil Guard has arrested nine people in the province of Valencia and is investigating another five for extorting, through mobile messaging, a dozen people residing in the province of Huesca, who have lost a total of 30,000 euros due to scams.
The various complaints collected by the Civil Guard in various Huesca towns began the “Planval” operation, to try to arrest those responsible for extorting their victims through death threats against them and their families in exchange for a payment of money.
The scams began when cyberextortionists contacted their victims, either through messaging applications or phone calls, reports the Civil Guard.
The complainants reported that they received serious threats such as the intention to show up at the victims’ homes if they did not agree to pay different financial amounts, and they were even sent videos where a man manipulated a firearm, increasing the fear of the victims.
One of the methods used by criminals, commonly known as social engineering, was obtaining personal and contact data through web page forms. This data included phone numbers, addresses, details about the victims’ family and workplace, as well as other personal data that they could use to carry out the extortion.
To further increase victims’ fear, extortionists threatened to release intimate content, which they claimed to have obtained by illicitly accessing their electronic devices.
This led the victims to make bank deposits in a desperate attempt to prevent the dissemination of any material that could be compromising, with a swindled amount of between 500 and 8,000 euros per victim. With all the information, the civil guards took steps to identify and locate the perpetrators of the threats.
After an intense investigation of almost two years, the agents of the Civil Guard Team in Huesca found out that the perpetrators had used telephone cards with a false identity and in other cases had usurped the identity of third parties who had also been previously extorted.
The agents investigated a large number of bank accounts that the perpetrators controlled through the Internet to receive bank deposits that, once completed, they quickly withdrew in cash at ATMs located in the capital of Valencia.
With all the perpetrators located, the Civil Guard has arrested nine people and investigated another five in the towns of Alzira, Torrent, Paiporta and València. One of them also had a search and arrest warrant for other crimes of the same type. Those detained and investigated have been made available in the courts of Barbastro, Huesca, Jaca and Monzón.
