Alex Trelinski
A mobile phone dealer made dozens of bogus claims to con an insurance company out of €500,000-worth of new ‘high-end’ phones.
The fraudster has been arrested by the Policia Nacional in Alicante.
His ruse was uncovered by an insurance company that dealt with large telecoms firms.
They became aware of a con that ran for over a year and reported the supplier to the police.
The insurer became suspicious about a large number of claims for lost or damaged mobile phones all coming from the Alicante area.
The trader had registered 102 insurance policies for replacement mobile phones with 34 firms that he supplied.
All claims made by telephone are routinely recorded.
The insurers discovered it was the same male voice making the claims and he used different company names attached to the policies, which included a proxy address.
The Policia Nacional learned that replacement phones were dispatched via courier companies who confirmed safe delivery via a signed receipt.
Officers tracked the parcels with the new phone units.
Hundreds of replacement phones were sent to three Alicante addresses with recipients signing for them by using the names of seven companies.
They also handed over their broken phones to the courier.
The top-range phones, which over a year totalled €500,000 in value, were then passed over to the dealer to be sold off.
One of the bogus recipients was also arrested in addition to the fraudster, but another man involved in the scam has since died.
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