Members of a cyber crime gang comprising of 34 people located in various parts of Spain have been arrested in a complex series of raids.
Agents of the National Police conducted 16 raids in towns in the provinces of Madrid, Málaga, Huelva, Alicante and Murcia where two simulated firearms, a katana, a baseball bat, 80,000 euros in cash, four high-end vehicles were seized. In addition tot hese items, a database with information on four million people and computer and electronic material valued at thousands of euros was also seized.
Wide range of scams
The gang carried out multiple fraudulent activities netting them almost three million euros by carrying out various types of scams including smishing, phishing and vishing, the ‘son in distress’ scam, manipulation of delivery notes from technology companies and various campaigns pretending to be employees of electrical supply companies.
The gang also sold to other criminal organizations the websites programmed by the organization’s hackers (such as fake banking websites, mass message sending programs or cross-databases) through specialized forums.
Long investigation
The investigation into the gang began at the beginning of this year by specialised agents of the Central Cybercrime Unit, after they identified a criminal network that had illegally accessed databases of various financial and credit entities, entering different amounts into client accounts.
The gang then contacted those clients informing them that due to a computer error they had entered a loan and had to return it, the gang then harvested any monies paid before the victims realised they had been scammed.
As the investigation progressed, it was discovered that the gang had also penetrated other multinational commercial databases, obtaining personal data of more than four million people which could have been used to commit their criminal actions.
Footage of one of the raids was posted to the Policia Nacional “X” account.
