The Mossos d’Esquadra of the Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) of the Ponent Police Region have dismantled a criminal group in Lleida that forged checks and that would have obtained around 60,000 euros.
Between December and February, agents have arrested six people for alleged crimes of robbery or theft, revelation of secrets, document falsification and fraud.
The investigation began in December with the arrest of a person who had entered a forged promissory note into an ATM in Lleida.
The bank provided a report of forged checks in Lleida during the last quarter of 2023 and investigators had a list of the account holders into which the forged documents had been entered.
In mid-December of last year, the Mossos d’Esquadra received a notice from a bank because a client wanted to withdraw money from an account in which a promissory note had been deposited that had turned out to be false.
The document had been entered days ago into an ATM and the owner had already withdrawn part of the money until the illegality was detected.
The original payment had the name of another beneficiary and the initial amount of 2,148 euros had been modified to 9,148 euros.
During the investigation, the police detected signs that would indicate that the events respond to the modus operandi of a group specialized in this type of crime.
In this way, a ‘obtainer’ intercepted the checks or promissory notes that companies sent by mail and prevented the documents from reaching their legitimate beneficiary, in this case, companies in an industrial estate in Moncada i Reixac (Vallès Occidental).
Once they had the documents, the ‘search engines’ recruited people who had a bank account to deposit the promissory note. According to the police, these are usually people with financial needs or coerced into assuming the legal consequences of the act in exchange for a commission.
Subsequently, the scammers entered the falsified document into an ATM into the account of the mule drivers, people recruited to operate with their account. When the money was already deposited, the criminals withdrew all the money before the entity detected the falsehood.
Specifically, the police investigation determined the identity of two ‘searchers’, aged 30 and 35 and detained in Barcelona, ??and three mule drivers, two men and a woman between 40 and 47 years old, detained in Lleida.
The investigation remains open to determine the identity of the rest of the people linked to the events.
