The National Police arrested two people in Alicante for alleged ties to a banking cyber fraud network across Spain that has arrested 54 people across the national geography, the Police Station reported. The investigation attributes to this network more than 80 scams that amounted to over 150,000 euros and were committed after the people involved got their victims’ bank codes. The money was transferred to the accounts of people who pretended to be mules, making it difficult to track down the real beneficiaries of the operations carried out to eliminate the funds from these cyber scams.
The National Police cracked down on a national crime syndicate specializing in scamming through social engineering techniques known as smishing, vishing, and phishing. 54 people, 10 women and 44 men, aged between 16-51, were arrested on charges of being a member of a criminal organization and being the perpetrator of fraud, who managed to defraud more than 150 thousand people. Euros in more than 80 criminal acts that occurred in various provinces of the country.
Investigations began in April of this year. Cybercrime Group Affiliated with Superior Police Headquarters in the Community of Valencia in cooperation with Xàtiva Local Judicial Police Brigade (Valencia).
Agents of a bank located in the municipality Ontinyent (Valencia)would suffer months ago computer attack on one of its servers and various clients victims of fraud by receiving fake text messages and calls How could cybercriminals obtain personal data? access to online banking for victims and thus they carry out fraudulent transactions.
fake SMS messages
Organization members managed to direct their victims via e-mailconnections received via SMS to mobile phonesThis led to fraudulent web pages where affected parties entered user data and bank passwords, leading to the hacking of criminals’ personal access information for online banking.
After this first step, victims got a call from a number pretending to be their bankby knowing what you have transactions pending authorization and one text message the code they need to provide to ensure the security of their accountthus enabling the scammers to instill sufficient deception and obtain all the necessary data to complete the fraudulent transactions.
The agents managed to identify the suspected perpetrators of this criminal organization after rigorous investigations. advanced expertise in social engineering techniquesThey formed a network of dependents who acted as “mules”. These people areThey cooperated to get the defrauded money then transfer to other bank accounts belonging to members of the organization with greater responsibility.
According to the police, a criminal organization stratification and a well-defined function distribution, Focusing on the implementation of different social engineering techniques, divided into three steps or sections of people of different profiles smishing, vishing and phishing.
Arrests in Alicante and Catalonia
During investigations that lasted until July, agents identified the alleged perpetrators of these events and arrested a total of 54 people, two of them in the province of Alicante and most of them in the provinces of Barcelona and Lleida. . The agents responsible for the investigation collaborated with the Barcelona City Judicial Police Brigade Cyber Crime Group. In addition, 3 mobile phones were confiscated for technical examination.
With this operation, the National Police succeeded in cracking down a vast network of bank mules that made their accounts available to cybercriminals to receive illegal transfers.
It was learned that 4 of the detainees had criminal records and were transferred to the courthouse, and the rest were released after giving testimony at the police station and warning about the obligation to apply to the judicial authorities when necessary.
types of fraud
The network used fraudulent methods known as smishing, vishing and phishing.
Stunning A fraudulent application in which an attacker attempts to obtain personal or financial information from a user via SMS text message. searches for it fake the bank or credit card issuers etc. such as other organisations.
Vishing is a social engineering technique aimed at obtaining personal and/or bank data, but in this case it is fraud. carried out through a phone calldeceiving the victim by impersonating a third party, sometimes providing personal data obtained from other sources to build trust in the user.
In what is known as phishing, scammers try to impersonate their victims. pretending to be a financial institution, company, or institution It has a good reputation for deceiving the user and stealing private data such as access credentials and other passwords.
Tips
The National Police gave various tips to avoid falling victim to these scams.
one. Do not give personal data or if phone calls are received from unknown numbers.
2. My friend communications received in which our name award winners, if they require the provision of our personal data, private keys or passwords to obtain them.
3. Check the extracts regularly Timely detection of unauthorized transactions by banks.
4. Insecurity propositions that guarantee economic return To participate in banking transactions with unknown third parties.