July 13 () –
Customs Surveillance officials of the Tax Agency and agents of the National Police have dismantled a criminal organization dedicated to fraud using the ‘financial beach bar’ method and which has led to the arrest of 22 people charged with organization crimes crime, fraud and money laundering, as reported by the Ministry of Finance and Public Function through a statement.
The Ministry explains that they formed a “perfectly organized” criminal network, with a pyramidal structure, in which two interrelated groups were integrated with a common ‘leader’. Among the detainees is this ‘ringleader’.
After the operation carried out, bank accounts for an amount of more than one and a half million euros have been blocked, as well as the preventive seizure of 13 properties with a value of more than five million euros.
The investigation began in March 2022 after a complaint from a
victim who claimed to have suffered a scam by having made an investment worth 55,000 euros. The complainant stated that he had contracted a financial service through the Internet and that, after carrying out different operations with his money, he had lost all the invested capital.
STRUCTURE OF THE CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION
As the investigations advanced, the investigators found that this complainant had been the victim of an international criminal organization, which had been operating throughout the national territory since at least 2020.
It was made up of two clearly differentiated teams, in continuous contact, coordinated by the organization’s leader.
A first team was made up of those in charge of attracting customers anonymously through ‘cold calls’ -that is, calls to potential customers who did not know the product- through the so-called ‘call centers’. These people deceived potential victims by offering “succulent benefits” obtained through financial operations over the Internet, “taking advantage of their ignorance of the investment systems used,” reports the Treasury.
The second team would be made up of those responsible for subsequently contacting clients to close operations. In addition, this network had members located abroad, in charge of providing the computer infrastructure, facilitating applications, web pages and bank accounts.
Finally, the head of the organization laundered the profits obtained in the scams. To do this, he used interposed companies with which he acquired properties whose valuation exceeds five million euros.
HOW THEY OPERATED
Once the victim had transferred the funds to the bank accounts, the alleged brokers simulated making investments in buying and selling products, trying to keep as many operations open as possible until the victims’ investment went bankrupt.
In reality, the funds were transferred to bank accounts abroad, where the money was stratified, to later be distributed among the members of the organization.
After the investigation, up to 30 victims have been located
more, to which an economic damage of one and a half million euros had occurred.
The operation has resulted in the arrest of 22 people charged with the crimes of criminal organization, fraud and money laundering.
A total of six searches have been carried out, both at homes and at the organization’s offices, in which more than 30 telephone terminals, several computers, different computer storage devices and numerous documentation referring to financial activity have been intervened.
In addition, in one of the registered addresses, a kilo of narcotic substance and various material for its sale were seized.
For the moment, the investigation remains open, since more arrests or the appearance of new injured parties are not ruled out, since the criminal organization made the victims believe that the loss of the invested capital was the result of “bad luck” or even “lack of money injection” from customers.
