Dozens of people defrauded of 94 thousand euros through the complex system of bank phishing.
La State Police, at the conclusion of a complex and detailed investigative activity aimed at combating financial crimes against unsuspecting bank account holders, coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Torre Annunziata, in execution of a custodial detention order issued by the Judge for preliminary investigations of the Court of Torre Annunziata, has proceeded to arrest seven people, all residents of Torre del Greco, seriously suspected of the crimes of computer fraud and criminal association aimed at committing such fraud.
YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN: Naples, Tik Tok's latest madness: he drinks while sitting at a table in the middle of the roadway
At the same time, a precautionary seizure order issued by the same GIP at the request of this Public Prosecutor's Office is being executed for an amount of €94.700, equal to the total sums of money unduly received by the perpetrators of the crimes.
The arrested, belonging to a criminal gang from Torre del Greco, but operating throughout the country, were dedicated to the latest generation of bank phishing, the proceeds of which were monetized at ATMs in the metropolitan city of Naples.
The investigation was inspired by a simple roadside check of a suspect found in possession of a valuable piece of jewelry, purchased online with the proceeds of a fraud. What may have seemed like a simple scam, from the first investigations carried out, has shown the complex implications and technical investigative problems related to it.
The investigative coordination between the Postal Police of Naples, the Torre del Greco Police Station and the PS Unit of the Judicial Police Section at this Public Prosecutor's Office, has allowed the identification of today's arrestees as the perpetrators of computer crimes.
The investigative activity of the Postal and Communications Police Service has allowed us to reconstruct the modus operandi of the suspects, also as a result of in-depth technical investigations, outlining an extremely extensive scenario of the phenomenon, allowing, among other things, to identify several victims throughout the national territory.
The investigations have allowed us to uncover a very complex criminal structure, both in terms of organization and technology. The scammers, through a stable organization, managed to obtain lists of telephone numbers of unaware recipients of the online fraud - phishing, and then send them text messages (smishing is the technical phenomenon) which were followed by a phone call made by fake bank operators, with calls apparently coming from the Banking Services Toll-Free Number.
The technical activities allowed to film and intercept the suspects while they were carrying out the various fraudulent operations, even while they were guests of a hotel in the center of the capital and where they were preparing to monetize the proceeds. These frauds perpetrated through “Smishing-Vishing” consist of receiving communications that appear to come from one’s own bank, which invite the citizen to access his/her online account through an Ioeb-link.
“Smishing” in particular takes place through malicious SMS messages that, due to a mere semantic affinity, are placed at the end of other authentic messages received from the bank; these SMS contain links to phishing pages where the user, believing he is operating on the real page, is induced to enter his banking credentials, thus handing over his data to cyber-criminals.
The vishing technique instead consists in contacting the potential victim via a telephone call in which a fake bank operator, through deception and captious arguments, persuades him to provide the dispositive codes of his financial account; it is frequent, during these calls, that the scammer presents to the victim the need to obtain his code in order to block some illicit withdrawal attempts made by third parties.
Taking advantage of this moment of uncertainty, criminals obtain the access credentials to current accounts that they then proceed to empty. The fraud is particularly insidious because the calls seem to come from the number of your bank, hence the name "Alias" and, speaking to an operator, the account holder is convinced that he is in a favorable environment, in his so-called "comfort zone" and lowers his alert level.
The fraud was then concluded through the accomplices who proceeded to fraudulent collections with large withdrawals of sums of money from ATMs enabled for cardless collection. The investigation activity allowed to ascertain the commission of 92 frauds and to reconstruct the amount of the overall damage caused to the identified victims, equal to Euro 94.700,00. At the same time as issuing the precautionary measure, the GIP declared himself incompetent, having considered the competence of the District Attorneys of Naples and Rome, to which the documents will be promptly transmitted, having recognized the configurability, in place of the crime under art. 493 ter cp originally contested, of that under art. 640 ter cp ..
Article published on May 25, 2021 - 09:42 pm
Video Chronicles
