Alex Trelinski
THE Policia Nacional have arrested two Romanian men who travelled specially to Spain’s Valencia area to cash in on a bank fraud known as ‘smishing’.
A third person involved in the scam has fled the country.
The detained men, aged 37 and 38, have been charged with fraud, money laundering and forgery.
A week’s stay in Valencia City and Alboraya netted them €102,000.
The ‘smishing’ involved sending a large amount of bogus text messages pretending to be from a bank.
That allowed the criminals to access personal details as customers were tricked into accessing a scam link to their bank.
The Cybercrime Group of the Policia Nacional in Valencia began investigations in January after complaints from victims around Spain.
The trio obtained passwords and PIN numbers accessed accounts through mobile apps to request bank cards to be forwarded to addresses in the Valencia area.
They’d then travel to Spain for up to a week to pick up the cards from apartments in Alboraya and Valencia City.
A spending spree then saw items like high-end mobile phones and laptops purchased which would be easy to sell second-hand.
The crooks also made ATM withdrawals and bought bitcoin cards.
The two arrested men were caught ‘red-handed’ in a Valencia phone shop.
They had two ‘stolen’ bank cards on them which had seen €2,580 in illegal withdrawals as well as numerous purchased items which police seized from their apartments.
The Policia Nacional said that a dozen people had been defrauded with individual losses adding up to as much as €15,000.
READ MORE:
- Online fraudsters, including British man, stole identities to bag €2 million in Spain’s Valencia area
- Cybercriminals in Spain’s Costa Blanca area send bogus text message to steal €23,000 from bank account
- Gang on Spain’s Costa Blanca use smishing scam to con bank customers
