The Civil Guard detains 35 people for falsifying bank cards
The number of injured people amounts to 230, the majority in Spain, but also in Israel, Denmark, Germany, France and Greece
The money cheated exceeds 600,000 euros and was bleached through bitcoins
The Civil Guard has arrested 35 people and investigated 22 others for falsifying bank cards and laundering the profits obtained through the bitcoin cryptocurrency. The dismantled organization had won more than 600,000 euros and bleached more than one million. In this macro-operation directed from the Command of Alicante, the Civil Guard has managed to clarify a total of 1,020 crimes related to telematic scams.
The detainees are from Equatorial Guinea, Spain, Nigeria, Cameroon and Morocco. The Capcana operation has been developed in three phases that have taken place in Alicante, Madrid, Valencia, Las Palmas, Vitoria, Zaragoza, Murcia, Barcelona, Pamplona, Malaga, Albacete and Illes Balears. There are a total of 210 people harmed by this scam in Spain, and another 20 in Israel, Denmark, Germany, France and Greece. The Civil Guard has detected a fraudulent use of a total of 104 bank cards from Spain and 12 other countries.
The investigations began after a complaint filed in Alicante by a car rental company to detect a fraudulent use of the cards with which they contracted the online services.
Three forms of telematic fraud
The first method that the organization used was the phising The alleged fraudster or "phisher " is passed by a person or company of confidence to achieve via electronic mail detailed information of the credit cards, as it can be the password or the code value of verification (cvv) of the cards.
Another of the forms used was the skimming, which consists of copying the magnetic stripe of the card used during the transaction to clone it and use it fraudulently.
The third method used by the organization was the Bin attack fraud (Bin attack fraud) by which new card numbers are generated, starting from a real, existing one. After testing them with a first transaction of 50 euros, the valid numbers were used in the next step with another transaction with values between 500 and 10,000 euros.
The members of the organization paid with false cards hotels, flights, train tickets, rental vehicles and computer effects. The beneficiaries paid the leaders of the network a much lower price than paid for these services. Two of the detainees transformed through several companies -located in Finland, Estonia and the United Kingdom- the profits obtained in bitcoins. The money was also laundered in the United States, Equatorial Guinea and Benin through money transfer platforms.
The Civil Guard has counted on the collaboration of Interpol, Europol, the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Telematic Crimes, the General Prosecutor's Office of Computer Crime. The proceedings are available to the Court of Instruction number 7 of Alicante.
For more information, you can contact the Peripheral Communication Office of the Civil Guard in Alicante at 965 14 56 60, extension 446.
