Alex Trelinski
THERE was double trouble for a British tourist in Benidorm after his mobile phone was stolen and the thieves then racked up £16,000 of transactions on it.
The robbers, aged 19 and 20, of Spanish and Algerian nationalities have been arrested by the Policia Nacional.
They targeted the Brit after watching him closely to get his phone access code.
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Once the victim realised his phone had been stolen the day before, he reported the theft to police.
He told officers that within hours, unknown people had made several transfers and payments from the phone, and had even requested bank loans in his name.
The police found that three men had been getting transfers from the British man’s accounts, but one of them had also been a victim.
The way the two thieves operated, and to hinder police tracking down the stolen money, was to make transfers to the account of a second victim, before it finally hit their own bank accounts.
The duo were identified, located, and arrested for fraud.
The Policia Nacional says that passwords and code numbers should not be keyed in on phones if there are unknown people nearby that could potentially be watching.
They also recommend using a totally different password for bank apps in case a phone is stolen and the thief works out that it is the same one used to access the unit.
