The Civil Guard has dismantled a criminal organization dedicated to telephone banking scams after an operation that resulted in 15 arrests in Tarragona, Barcelona, and other Spanish provinces. The arrested individuals, eight men and seven women between 19 and 55 years old, are under investigation for at least 26 counts of fraud, money laundering, and belonging to a criminal organization.
The network managed to appropriate nearly 400,000 euros from companies, associations, and individuals. The scale of the fraud contrasts with the mechanics of the events, based on calls in which the suspects impersonated employees of financial entities to create urgency and obtain verification codes or authorizations from the victims.
The investigation began with the diversion of 53,000 euros to a club in Sant Joan d'Alacant
The investigation began with a complaint filed by the sports club Sant Joan d'Alacant, from which 53,000 euros were stolen. From that case, agents reconstructed an operation that went beyond an isolated scam and affected different parts of the country.
According to the information gathered during the proceedings, the organization contacted victims by phone, posing as bank personnel. With this method, they sought to have them authorize operations or provide codes with which they later accessed their accounts.
Then, the money left the compromised accounts for other bank accounts and international financial platforms. Part of these funds also ended up in the purchase of cryptocurrencies, a step aimed at making it difficult to trace the money.
The network distributed functions among cells and used the accounts of another 15 people
The Civil Guard maintains that the organization operated through specialized cells. This structure allowed tasks to be distributed among those who recruited victims, those who moved the money, and those who facilitated the outflow of funds.
In this scheme, there were also so-called mules, people who provided bank accounts to channel transfers. Investigators identified another 15 people linked to this function within the plot.
The police operations took place in Tarragona, Barcelona, Alicante, Balearic Islands, Castellón, Granada, Jaén, Madrid, Málaga, Murcia, and Valencia. The deployment places the center of the operation in several provinces at once, although the scams investigated also reached victims of different profiles, from individuals to associations and companies.
For the moment, the Guardia Civil has judicially recovered 20,000 euros corresponding to one of the investigated scams. The case attributes a total fraud of close to 400,000 euros to the detainees in at least 26 reported incidents.