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A scam worth almost a million euros to a criminal group has been broken up, leading to more than 100 people being arrested across Spain.
WhatsApp users were fooled by fraudulent messages sent to them asking for money from “relatives in distress” claiming to be using a new number to make contact due to an emergency situation they have found themselves in.
Police made the arrests between February and April of this year in seven different Spanish provinces, with the suspects having an age range between 20 and 60. The charges were for fraud, and money laundering; as well as being part of a criminal organisation.
Law enforcement discovered over 500 bank accounts that fraudsters had used to transfer the funds, on top of registering nearly 100 phone numbers with false identities.
These so-called “family-in-need” schemes are quite common amongst the hacker community right across the globe.
Social media the way in
The police revealed that the hackers used social media to find potential targets and collect as much information as they possibly can, in an attempt
Worryingly, the scammers were so convincing with the details they presented that in most cases they were able to get continuous payments from their victims.
Preying on family ties
They would often claim that their phone has been lost or damaged and they have been locked out of their bank account.
A more complex version would see the scammer tricking a person into giving them the two-factor authentication code for their account. They may pose as a contact, and claim they sent the request for the code to the person’s phone by mistake.
Transfers ranged from €800 to €55,000. At least 238 victims were identified in the province of Alicante alone, which saw arrests along with Barcelona, Girona, Madrid, Malaga and Valencia.
by Mick the Ram
A scam worth almost a million euros to a criminal group has been broken up, leading to more than 100 people being arrested across Spain.
WhatsApp users were fooled by fraudulent messages sent to them asking for money from “relatives in distress” claiming to be using a new number to make contact due to an emergency situation they have found themselves in.
Police made the arrests between February and April of this year in seven different Spanish provinces, with the suspects having an age range between 20 and 60. The charges were for fraud, and money laundering; as well as being part of a criminal organisation.
Law enforcement discovered over 500 bank accounts that fraudsters had used to transfer the funds, on top of registering nearly 100 phone numbers with false identities.
These so-called “family-in-need” schemes are quite common amongst the hacker community right across the globe.
Social media the way in
The police revealed that the hackers used social media to find potential targets and collect as much information as they possibly can, in an attempt to make the conversation seem more credible.
Worryingly, the scammers were so convincing with the details they presented that in most cases they were able to get continuous payments from their victims.
Preying on family ties
They would often claim that their phone has been lost or damaged and they have been locked out of their bank account.
A more complex version would see the scammer tricking a person into giving them the two-factor authentication code for their account. They may pose as a contact, and claim they sent the request for the code to the person’s phone by mistake.
Transfers ranged from €800 to €55,000. At least 238 victims were identified in the province of Alicante alone, which saw arrests along with Barcelona, Girona, Madrid, Malaga and Valencia.
Student loan that isn’t
Spain has been hit previously by hackers in a different scheme back in January. In this scam they convinced families that their children, more often than not students studying abroad, were in serious financial difficulties and urgently needed cash.
Local police arrested 59 members of a criminal gang on that occasion having stolen over €460,000 (£393,000) from unsuspecting victims.
Worldwide problem
These “family-in-need” scams are common worldwide, with America amongst the big hitters. One US family were tricked out of hundreds of dollars when a group of hackers convinced them that their daughter had been abducted by Mexican authorities.
Some basic safeguards to adopt
Essentially, the message is to remain guarded with several key points to follow, which in most cases are simply to observe some common sense moves, such as:
Verify the identity of the contacts claiming emergencies, especially when contacted from a new phone number. Of course there is a chance it could be genuine, but it should be relatively straightforward to establish if they are genuine.
Never share highly sensitive information like two-factor authentication codes, irrespective of the requester’s supposed identity.
Make use of WhatsApp’s security settings to enhance account protection, such as enabling two-step verification.
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