National Police agents have arrested six men, between the ages of 26 and 51, for their alleged involvement in a criminal organization, based mainly in Malaga and with ramifications in Cartagena (Murcia), and dedicated to the commission technology scams using the ‘Man in the middle’ method. Guadalajara companies are among those affected by 10 of his cyber scams.
This ‘modus operandi’ consists of intercepting a company’s email to obtain an invoice, modifying it and getting the creditor to enter the amount into the fraudster’s account.
Investigators have been able to prove the participation of this plot in at least ten scams, seven of them consummated, raising the total amount defrauded to around 175,000 euros, frustrating three other attacks, the National Police said in a statement.
The investigations began due to the complaint of a well-known Cartagena company that had been the victim of a cyber scam, in the modality known as ‘Man in the middle’ or intermediary attack.
This is a cyberattack, in which criminals intercept a conversation (usually via email) between two companies that maintain commercial, service-providing relationships or any other that implies a payment obligation from one to the other.
The ‘modus operandi’ of the criminal organization consisted of accessing corporate email, using different methods, such as sending malicious emails.
Once they managed to access the accounts, they created electronic filtering rules looking for those emails that had certain words such as “invoice”, “invoicing”, “delivery note” or similar.
Thus, after gaining control of the emails that were of interest to them, they located those that contained a pending invoice and modified it, indicating for collection a bank account number that had been opened with a fictitious identity.
So far, it has been possible to prove the participation of members of this criminal organization in at least ten cyber-scams, bringing the total amount defrauded to around 175,000 euros.
Its victims are companies spread throughout the national territory: Cartagena, Málaga, Cáceres, Guadalajara, Alaquas (Valencia), Xirivella (Valencia), Salt (Girona), Lalín (Pontevedra), Ponferrada (León), Palma de Mallorca and Jerez de the border
The rapid intervention of the agents managed to frustrate three attacks directed at as many companies for an amount of about 110,000 euros.
The operation culminated in the arrest of six men, including the main perpetrators, five in Malaga and one in Cartagena, who are accused of fraud, document forgery, money laundering and criminal organization.
In the searches carried out, one in Cartagena and two in the city of Malaga, various computer equipment, eleven mobile phones and false documents were seized, among other things. After being placed at the disposal of the competent judicial authority, two of those investigated were ordered to enter prison.
