Massive €11.000 online scam involving a gaming console dismantled

A complex online scam was uncovered by the Carabinieri in Piazza Bologna, Rome, who reported two men, aged 22 and 71, from the province of Naples, believed to be responsible for defrauding a young man from the capital and his family.

The story began with an ad on a well-known e-commerce site, offering a gaming console for sale at a particularly low price of €199, thus attracting the victim's attention. After establishing contact, the alleged scammers switched the call to a private phone line and convinced the buyer to make numerous instant bank transfers.

The scam also involved the young man's mother, who was tricked into making further deposits into a second account, registered in the 71-year-old's name and presented as a close relative, specifically the grandfather of the first suspect. The victims deposited a total of €11.000 before the scam was discovered. The investigation leveraged bank account analysis, which confirmed the funds' destination in current accounts and prepaid cards linked to the two suspects.

Further evidence emerged from checking orders on food delivery platforms, which could be traced back to the suspects' residential addresses, and from cross-referencing the data of the telephone numbers used during the scam. These investigations allowed us to reconstruct the details of the scam and file charges against the perpetrators.