With the credit cards stolen from bank customers they placed bets of thousands of euros in Slovenian casinos, as well as withdrawing from ATMs throughout Italy.
FThe criminal organization was based in Naples and was dismantled thanks to the operation 'Incognito' - conducted by the Neapolitan Prosecutor's Office - which led to the execution of eleven precautionary measures (ten in prison, while three other people are wanted). The crimes contested were criminal association aimed at receiving stolen goods and the improper use, with activation through fraudulent methods, of credit/debit cards of illicit origin. The fraud unfolded in three steps: the theft of credit cards from mechanized postal centers where the cards are stored before being sent to the recipients; the retrieval - through social engineering techniques - of the data necessary for their activation to be obtained from unaware customers or from the banks themselves thanks to a series of IT tricks; finally, the use of the cards, once activated, in various Slovenian casinos or to withdraw from ATMs in Italy, but also in Switzerland.
The investigation, which lasted over eight months, allowed the organization chart of the association to be reconstructed and 133 successful withdrawals to be documented, committed from January to May 2019, to the detriment of 122 injured parties for a total of several hundred thousand euros. During the investigation, 220 credit cards of illicit origin and 7.450 euros in cash were also seized. The Carabinieri of the Investigative Unit of Verbania, together with their colleagues from the Provincial Commands of Naples, Caserta and Bologna, with the collaboration of the Slovenian and Swiss police, carried out the measures issued by the GIP of Naples. The investigation was launched in March 2019 following the arrest, in Naples, of one of the perpetrators of the armed robbery at the post office in Nonio (Verbania) in December 2018. During the house search, the Carabinieri found a credit card registered to a woman from Northern Italy, completely unrelated to the arrested person. The credit card, bearing a false signature and never reaching its owner, had been used in a Slovenian casino; further verification revealed that it had been stolen, at the end of January 2019 together with many others from the same batch, from the mechanized postal center in Milan Roserio. Analyzing the movements of all the credit cards from that batch, it emerged that many had been used improperly in Slovenian casinos or in Italian public establishments or ATMs. The investigations have thus revealed the existence of a well-structured organization capable of using “social engineering” and “spoofing” techniques to defraud banks and customers by contacting the recipients of the cards from time to time, to bypass the security systems of public offices and financial institutions, and to obtain the confidential data necessary to activate the available credit cards. The victims only realized that they had been defrauded after the fact, by reading their bank statement.
Article published on 1 July 2020 - 20:23
