Nine arrested for extorting 30,000 euro from a dozen victims with death threats

The Guardia Civil has arrested nine people in the province of Valencia and is investigating five more for extorting, via mobile messaging, a dozen people residing in the province of Huesca who have lost a total of 30,000 euro due to scams.

The various complaints collected by the Guardia Civil 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 cyber extortionists contacted their victims, either through messaging applications or through phone calls. 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. They even sent them videos where a man made threats while handling 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 euro per victim.

With all the information, the Guardia Civil took steps to identify and locate the perpetrators of the threats. After an intense investigation of almost two years, the agents of the Guardia Civil in Huesca found out that the authors 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 Guardia Civil has arrested a total of nine people and investigated another five in the towns of Alzira, Torrent, Paiporta and Valencia. 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 to the courts of Barbastro, Huesca, Jaca and Monzón.

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