- There are affected in the provinces of A Coruña, Albacete, Alicante, Barcelona, Burgos, Granada, Valencia, autonomous community of Madrid and region of Murcia
- 2 people have been arrested and 2 others investigated, as alleged perpetrators of the crimes of fraud, reception and belonging to a criminal group
- The Team @ of the Civil Guard Bizkaia has been able to recover most of the scammed products
Civil guards of the Team @ of the Civil Guard Bizkaia, within the framework of the operation “SAREA PHONE”, have arrested two people and investigated two others, for fraud at a national level in the purchase of high-end technological products, they are attributed the crimes of Fraud, Reception and belonging to the Criminal Group.
In mid-July 2022, agents of the Team @ began to investigate several complaints, with the same pattern, filed in Civil Guard posts scattered throughout the Spanish geography. Three homes in Bilbao were being used as pick-up addresses for high-end technological products (state-of-the-art smartphones, video game consoles) acquired fraudulently via the internet.
The modus operandi used by the organization was to contact the scammers through websites of purchase - sale of articles, interested in the product they offered and reach a purchase agreement. The next step was to send an e-mail to the seller simulating the official payment page of the buy-sell website, giving a guarantee that the payment of the goods had been made.
To give more credibility to the mail they sent to the seller, they included a false anagram of the Civil Guard, pretending that the transaction was being audited and giving more credibility to the letter of payment.
In addition, on the simulated payments page, the scammers reflected having made a payment higher than the agreed price, making the victims believe they had received more money by mistake, so they asked them for a transfer with the difference supposedly entered to seniors. Three of the injured believed this fact and paid the alleged excess.
The sellers, believing they had received the payment, sent the technological products through parcel companies, to one of the three addresses in Bilbao that facilitated the organization. The packages were picked up by different people, who handed it to the alleged leader of the organization.
This person resold the products in stores dedicated to the purchase – sale of second-hand items established in Bilbao, to immediately obtain liquidity.
After a complex investigation, the guards of the Team @ of Bizkaia, have been able to dismantle the criminal group based in Bilbao that cheated on the Internet throughout the national territory, recovering most of the technological products obtained illegally.
SALE OF ITEMS VIA INTERNET
On the part of the Team @ of the Civil Guard Bizkaia the following recommendations are given in order to avoid suffering this type of crime:
Do not send the product until you see the payment for the transaction in your checking account.
Make sure that the payment page belongs to the website of purchase – sale, the “simulated” ones usually contain grammatical errors.
Be wary if the buyer tells you that they have entered a higher subscription by mistake.
Never send images of your personal documentation (ID, driver’s license, bank cards…) to the buyer.