Eight people arrested for half a million euro “Man in the middle” scam

The Guardia Civil, within the framework of operation Doctor-51, has dismantled an organisation and arrested eight members of it in Almería, for swindling more than half a million euro with the “Man in the middle” method. Among those detained are the corporate manager, the people who acted as economic mules and their recruiter.

Two entries and searches have been carried out at homes and three legal entities have been investigated, suspending their commercial activities. Likewise, 41 bank accounts, 21 rural properties, two urban properties have been blocked and seized and a vehicle has been seized.

The detainees intercepted the emails of the injured companies and modified their account numbers to receive the money that was intended for them. In total, the money swindled reaches 638,442 euro and it is not ruled out that this figure will increase, since the organisation operated not only at the national level, but also in other European countries such as the Czech Republic, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Italy and internationally in the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

“Man in the middle”

The scam consists of intercepting emails between two interlocutors and impersonating one or the other to obtain and modify sensitive information such as bank account numbers.

The criminal organisation had established specific roles for each of its members. The leaders were in charge of intercepting the emails of the companies they were going to scam and once they succeeded, they diverted the funds to accounts created in the name of front men and front companies, thus making it difficult to trace the money and hiding its origin.

The constitution of these companies, in the name of intermediaries, only reflected the appearance of a company to receive transfers of high amounts from the injured companies, simulating a commercial activity and thereby evading the control mechanisms and indicators of prevention of money laundering established in financial institutions.

Another of the detainees was responsible for establishing the companies and recruiting the people who were going to be responsible for the bank accounts in exchange for a financial commission, what is known as mules or straw men. When the money swindled from legal companies reached one of these accounts, the economic mule received instructions to dispose of it through cash withdrawals and deliveries to another account or transfers.

The investigators, in addition to detecting economic movements between accounts, have also discovered other methods that the organisation used to launder money, such as the purchase of motor vehicles or the simulation of the purchase and sale of a non-existent rural property valued at almost 1,800. 000 euro. In the latter case, almost 270,000 euro were paid as a reserve for the property, with the condition that if the rest of the amount that was supposedly worth was not paid, the deposit would be lost, and the contract would be terminated. In this way they managed to introduce the previously swindled money into the legal circuit.

The proceedings and the detainees have been placed at the disposal of the Court of First Instance and Instruction No. 6 of Almería.