The Mossos d'Esquadra, with the collaboration of the National Police, have arrested in Lloret de Mar two brothers aged 24 and 27 who pretended to be experts in real estate investments and potential buyers of cryptocurrencies and luxury goods to defraud 2 .5 million euros. Specifically, five scams are attributed to them through the method known as rip, which consists of the exchange of legal bills for fake ones without the victim realizing it. Once they have convinced the victims of their professionalism, they exchange money or objects for bills that turn out to be fake.
The brothers had a lot of experience in this type of scam, they changed residences frequently and quickly transferred the money or objects so that they were lost and thus avoid being incriminated.
Officers opened an investigation after detecting an increase in reports of scams through this method in recent months. The investigation led them to the same family clan that resided in a rental property in Lloret de Mar. Thanks to the coordination between the police, they credited a sixth scam related to the purchase of cryptocurrencies in the city of Valencia and a joint team with the National Police was consolidated.
The two brothers contacted the victims through advertisements, or even through messaging applications. They mainly chose people who showed an interest in exchanging cryptocurrencies for currencies outside the mainstream, although they could also exchange jewelry, luxury goods or cash.
Once the best business option was chosen, they were interested in making large investments. Those investigated pretended to be successful businessmen and even dressed and wore expensive clothes, luxury items or stayed in expensive hotels and took care of the expenses of the first lunches, which were used to establish the first contacts.
Before closing the purchase or investment deal, they offered victims the possibility of making an exchange, of cash (large denomination notes for smaller notes), cryptocurrencies or other items. To increase the supposed profit in terms of the victims' business, they also offered them even a 20% commission for the operation.
The key moment of the scam was the exchange of money. Usually the fraudsters called a meeting in a reserved hotel or in a business center, where the exchange of the money, cryptocurrency or what they claimed was to take place. At some point in the meeting, once the cash was counted, this is where the exchange of real notes for the photocopies that the victims ended up receiving took place. With this method they appropriated 2.5 million euros.
