The National Police of Spain said it arrested 40 individuals for their alleged involvement in an organized crime gang called Trinitarians.
Among those apprehended include two hackers who carried out bank scams through phishing and smishing techniques and 15 other members of the crime syndicate, who have all been charged with a number of offenses such as bank fraud, forging documents, identity theft, and money laundering.
In all, the nefarious scheme is believed to have defrauded more than 300,000 victims, resulting in losses of over €700,000.
To pull off the attacks, the cybercriminals sent bogus links via SMS that, when clicked, redirected users to a phishing panel masquerading as legitimate financial institutions to steal their credentials and abuse the access to request for loans and link the cards to cryptocurrency wallets under their control.
The stolen cards were used to purchase digital assets, which were then cashed out to fund the group’s operations, such as paying legal fees, sending money to members in prison, and the purchase of narcotics and weapons.
Another scam perpetrated by the outfit entailed contracting point-of-sale (PoS) terminals by setting up front companies to make false purchases.
Authorities said 13 house searches were carried out in the provinces of Madrid, Seville, and Guadalajara, leading to the confiscation of computer equipment, padlocks, €5,000 in cash, lock-picking toolkits, and other documents containing information about the gang’s organizational structure.
Source: https://thehackernews.com/
