Dismantled the financing structure of the Trinitarians with more than €700,000 defrauded

The National Police has dismantled the financing structure of the Trinidadians with which they obtained more than 700,000 euros through hacking tools (fraudulently obtaining digital data) and business logistics for carrying out computer scams.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
22 May 2023 Monday 13:20
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Dismantled the financing structure of the Trinitarians with more than €700,000 defrauded

The National Police has dismantled the financing structure of the Trinidadians with which they obtained more than 700,000 euros through hacking tools (fraudulently obtaining digital data) and business logistics for carrying out computer scams.

As reported by the National Police on Tuesday, with the profits obtained, the criminal organization paid the fees of the lawyers of the members in prison, paid the membership fees to the gang, bought drugs to resell them and acquired weapons for their confrontations with gang members. rivals.

In this operation, the agents have arrested 40 people, including two hackers and 15 members of the violent group, accused of the crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, bank fraud, document forgery, identity theft and money laundering.

The investigation, carried out by agents from the Central Cybercrime Unit and the Madrid Provincial Information Brigade, began when the agents found out that some members of the gang used third-party bank cards to acquire crypto assets (virtual currencies). In addition, some of its leaders operated with computer tools to implement 'phishing' techniques (illegal SMS with identity theft) on a financial institution focused on consumer credit.

To carry out the attacks, the criminal group acquired specific software from cybercriminals, known in slang as 'panels', in which they monitored in real time the private bank details that the victim, after clicking on the previously received malicious link via SMS, they entered the fraudulent page that simulated the financial institution of which they were clients. These SMS were sent en masse to lists of clients of that financial institution, messages in which they were alerted to an alleged security problem in their account that they could solve through the fraudulent link that was sent to them.

In this way, the detainees managed to get the victims to enter their access credentials on the page to which they were directed, similar in appearance to the real website of their entity. At that same moment, the cybercriminals were monitoring the access credentials from the aforementioned panel. At this point, they entered the online portal of the financial institution with the credentials of the victims and requested immediate loans, as well as linked the cards of those affected to the virtual wallet on their phones.

Once they had linked third-party cards, they went to various centers where they bought cryptocurrency coupons that were exchanged in the Wallet of one of the members who controlled that virtual wallet as the "common box" of the organization. This is how they met the usual expenses of the group -purchase of narcotic substances, financing of meetings and parties of the band, purchase of weapons and payment of lawyers or sending money to members in prison to cover their expenses-. They also had an extensive network of mules that they used to receive money from bank transfers and withdraw it through ATMs.

Another of the systems that they used to monetize the content of the cards under their control was the contracting of Point of Sale Terminals (POS) on behalf of fictitious companies of online cosmetic product stores, making false purchases themselves.

Likewise, the remaining economic return was sent to bank accounts abroad and was also used in the purchase of real estate in the Dominican Republic, all assets being currently located through international police cooperation mechanisms for the location and recovery of assets and property from crime.

In the exploitation phase of the investigation, the National Police has carried out 13 house searches in the provinces of Madrid, Seville and Guadalajara, seizing numerous computer equipment, 5,000 euros in cash, lists of more than 300,000 clients who were defrauded, 53 cards bank accounts in the name of the victims, instruments for opening doors, picks, padlocks and various literature related to the structure of the Trinitarios gang.