Mossos d'Esquadra of the Investigation Unit of the Premià de Mar police station (Maresme) arrested, on November 2, 17 people as alleged perpetrators of the crimes of belonging to a criminal group, fraud, coercion, illegal detention and robbery with violence and intimidation. The authors of the scams are originally from the Dominican Republic.
The investigation began following a complaint filed in Palma de Mallorca, in which the victim received a message on her mobile phone posing as her son and asking for a money transfer to make payments. Thinking that she was indeed talking to her son, she made three bank transactions in which she ended up transferring a total of 11,885 euros to three different bank accounts.
On the same day that these events occurred, May 13, a second victim reported that he had received a credit of 3,970 euros into his account and that through a friend of his he had to withdraw that amount of money in cash to give to a third person. . This money was part of the 11,885 euros that had just been scammed. Later they accompanied the victim to a betting shop in Mataró to make more money withdrawals. This action was done against the victim's will, as she felt coerced.
The Premià de Mar Investigation Unit took charge of the investigations and was able to prove the existence of a criminal group specialized in this criminal typology. Apart from attributing this fact to them, the researchers also relate them to events with similar characteristics in which the victims who have suffered economic damage reside throughout Spain: Sant Cugat del Vallès, Argentona, Lleida, Madrid, Badajoz and Valencia. In total, this group has swindled more than 60,000 euros.
The Mossos d'Esquadra carried out a device on November 2 in which they arrested 17 people in the towns of Premià de Mar, Granollers, Mollet del Vallès, Santa María de Palautordera, Vic, Olot, La Bisbal de Empordà and Canovelles Apart from the arrests, some 2,000 euros in cash were involved.
This criminal group always followed the same patterns to carry out the scam: First of all, they sent messages through WhatsApp where they posed as the victims' son/daughter. In that message they told them that they had had to change their cell phone number since it had been broken and that they could only talk by message, and that they needed money to make a payment they had pending.
If the victim believed the story and made the money transfers, they made him do it to the account numbers of front men close to the place of residence of the scammers, which they had previously selected through people who were dedicated to capturing them. In most cases, they selected vulnerable people who would not show great resistance if they were detected to be doing something irregular.
Once these front men received the money in their account, the scammers made them withdraw cash from the bank, or had them transfer it to another bank account. In this way, without knowing it, the front men became participants in the criminal activity.
Of the 17 detainees, 12 were released after testifying at police headquarters, while the other five were brought before a court on Saturday before the Mataró guard investigative court.
