Seven arrested in three-million-euro SIM card scam investigation

The Guardia Civil has arrested seven alleged cybercriminals in Malaga, Barcelona, ​​Valencia and Zamora who are believed to have defrauded victims throughout the country of a total of 3,381,000 euro using the technique known as SIM swapping.

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Residents in Malaga, the leaders of this hacker group had a huge base of operations in Venezuela, with up to 74 members who have been identified by investigators.

Through this modus operandi, cybercriminals manage to fraudulently duplicate the SIM card of a person’s mobile phone by impersonating their identity. Subsequently, once the victim has been left without telephone service, they access their personal information, take control of the phone applications and impersonate them on their social networks, in their email accounts and, especially in digital banking through verification SMS that arrives at the phone number.

Once the electronic banking system recognises the cybercriminals believed to be the owners of their victims’ accounts, they proceed to empty them, they take out loans, telephone lines or make large purchases on international platforms.

To launder the swindled money, the detainees recruited their “mules” through social networks. These people, in exchange for a sum of money, were in charge of transferring the profits obtained illegally by the scammers to an account that the organisation had in a bank in Miami, in the United States.

This operation has been carried out by the Telematic Crimes Team of the Organic Unit of the Judicial Police of the Guardia Civil Command of Granada, after a resident of La Zubia reported that he had been defrauded of more than 25,000 euro through four transfers made fraudulently from their bank accounts, both personal and business.

The victim read an email in which he was informed that they had changed their email password, and that if they wanted to reset it again he had to click on a link. After doing so, five minutes later the victim lost mobile network on their phone. Concerned, they entered their bank accounts through a company computer and discovered that they had been defrauded of 25,000 euro.

During the investigation phase of this operation, Granada investigators discovered that the two lieutenants of the organisation were two Venezuelan citizens who lived in the city of Malaga.

The Guardia Civil, during the exploitation phase, carried out searches at both homes and seized two laptops, six mobile phones, two bank cards, two cryptocurrency cards, documentation and a cryptocurrency wallet.

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