December 21, 2023.- The National Police has arrested 14 people, 13 in Valladolid and one in Benidorm for the scam of the son in distress.
In mid-June of the year 2023, the Valladolid Cybercrime and Technological Research Group, and thanks to the collaboration in Fraud Prevention maintained by the National Police with the different financial entities, detected a suspicious operation by a client in a Valladolid branch who was trying to reintegrate an amount of money from a scam to a victim who had reported the facts in the Madrid town of Majadahonda.
This person turned out to be a “mule” whose mission is to receive money from victims of the modality of scams of children in distress and then, after collecting a percentage of the money, send it to the upper echelon in the organization.
For all these reasons, the Cybercrime-Technological Research Group started the appropriate investigation focused on the identification of the different steps of the criminal organization: lower step composed of the mules, intermediate composed of the catchers of the mules or “qualified mules” and upper step or “leader of the organization” that is the person who assembles the structure and has the necessary technical knowledge to consummate the scam.
First phase the Operation
This investigation culminated, after multiple inquiries, in the exploitation of a first phase of the Operation that took place throughout the summer, in which five mules and a qualified mule catcher or mule were arrested in Valladolid.
It was also possible to fully identify the leader of the organization, a man who had moved from Holland to Valladolid in order to develop the criminal structure necessary to defraud numerous victims spread throughout Spain.
To do this, he first contacted an individual whose mission in turn was to attract the mules to offer their bank accounts as cover to receive fraudulent transfers from victims of scams of children in distress in exchange for money or favours of all kinds.
After this first phase, the analysis of the financial documentation used by the organization to perpetrate the fraud, and the collaboration of the Local Commissariats of Ronda and Cartagena and the Provincial Commissariat of Zaragoza, where they denounced some of the victims, led to the complete identification of another 15 people belonging to the criminal structure in the mule stair.
The person identified as leader of the organization was located and detained on October 16 in Benidorm after having requested a European Arrest Warrant.
Second phase of Operation
Developed from the end of November and until mid-December where seven more people have been located and detained - six mules and a qualified mule.
Likewise, three other mules were identified and investigated in Valladolid, two in Barcelona, two in Alicante and another of Dutch origin.
Thus, the criminal organization that based in Valladolid had deceived 17 victims spread throughout the national territory was completely dismantled - three in the province of Madrid, two in the province of Malaga, one in Granada, two in Catalonia, two in Zaragoza, one in Palma de Mallorca, one in Cuéllar, one in Alicante, two in Telde, one in Cartagena and one in Badajoz.
The total fraud caused has amounted to 105,000 euros, having been able to block, thanks to the promptness of the complaint of one of the victims and the speed of the action of the investigators, several fraudulent transfers in an amount of about 30,000 euros, which were finally reintegrated to the victims.
Modus operandi
This criminal organization that perpetrated scams in the form of “son in distress”, after contacting the victims, who were parents, pretended to be their children through WhatsApp and asked them for various amounts of money, using different pretexts.
The scammers always used mobile phones different from the children’s regular phones, saying that they wrote from a friend’s phone, since their phone had been damaged and that they needed their father/mother to make an urgent deposit of money in the account detailed below in a message, so they could buy another new phone, since they were incommunicado.
If the father or mother victim of the fraud made the entry into the indicated account, the fraudsters continued to deceive them by giving them other pretexts so that they could make more payments and could pay very significant amounts of money.
The role of mules
They are the people who title the bank accounts receiving the money of the victims, so they are necessary collaborators with this type of criminal organizations when they lend themselves to open a bank account or provide in the online accounts their numbering and keys to another member of the organization, later receiving the money of the victim in the account provided to immediately dispose of it in the way indicated by the organization, complicating its tracking of the money to the researchers and preventing the recovery of the money.
These people are caught in different ways: sometimes physically by mule catchers who offer them an amount of money to collaborate with the organization, at other times through the internet such as through supposed job offers, suddenly receiving money in advance for a supposed job that they haven’t actually done. Mule catchers tend to be very persistent and even offer mules to keep a percentage of the money scammed in compensation for the collaboration they lend (between 5% and 10%).
If someone detects that they are trying to capture him or has received some kind of unexpected money in the indicated way, they must report it to the Police immediately and thus it will be possible to proceed to the blocking and return of the cheated amounts to the accounts of the victims, being therefore collaborating with the Police at all times, so there would be no criminal liability on their part.
But if they send the money where the organization tells them they are collaborating with the criminal organization, therefore being responsible for a crime of fraud and even money laundering in a reckless way, so that they would proceed to their arrest, resulting in the consequent criminal responsibility with prison sentences and a fine.
Tips for this type of scam
First check the veracity of the messages, calling the number you have of your child or if he does not respond to that of someone else we know is with him.
- If it is not possible to ask the interlocutor some data that only your child can know or put some “bait” to check that the interlocutor is truly your child: such as telling him if he takes a pill every day (when for example he does not take any medication) or asking him how his dog is (when he does not actually have one)
- Beware of making immediate transfers because the criminals will withdraw them very quickly and then the victims will not be able to recover the money when they realize the deception and report it to the police.
If you have any doubts, please call the Room of 091 before making a deposit of money and if you have fallen into deception go to the National Police Station as soon as possible to report the facts.