Alex Trelinski
A blackmail gang has been arrested in Alicante and Valencia after pocketing over €200,000 by threatening users of an escort website.
Six people have been detained by the Policia Nacional with 12 victims identified so far across Spain.
Website users who contacted women by phone were called a few days later by gang members posing as pimps.
They demanded payments for ‘time wasting’ after a client decided not to go through with a meeting.
They kept records of previous encounters involving website clients to threaten them with telling families about their clandestine liasons.
Victims made payments to accounts in the name of ‘mules’ through bank transfers, instant payment apps, or cash deposits at ATMs.
The use of third parties was aimed at making police investigations harder.
The ‘mules’ never used the accounts but were given money to attach their names to them.
Once a transfer had been made, the criminals demanded further payments to remain quite about the client’s sexual activities.
Computer gear, mobile phones, and a gun were removed in Policia Nacional raids.
READ MORE:
- Police in Spain’s Valencia arrest blackmailers extorting men who booked escorts
- Five teenagers arrested on Spain’s Costa Blanca for sexually blackmailing fellow youngsters
- Alicante boy uses female social media profiles in sex blackmail plot in Spain
- Escort website users blackmailed via instant messaging app used by Valencia gang in Spain
