Investigators from the Spanish National Police (Policía Nacional) together with the Civil Guard (Guardia Civil) and Europol targeted back in January suspects across Spain believed to be part of a hacking ring which stole over €3 million in a series of SIM swapping attacks. 12 individuals were arrested in Benidorm (5), Granada (6) and Valladolid (1).
Composed of nationals between the ages of 22-52 years old from Italy, Romania, Colombia and Spain, this criminal gang struck over 100 times, stealing between €6,000 and €137,000 from bank accounts of unsuspecting victims per attack.
The modus operandi was simple, yet effective. The criminals managed the obtain the online banking credentials from the victims of the different banks by means of hacking techniques such as the use of banking Trojans or other types of malware. Once they had these credentials, the suspects would apply for a duplicate of the SIM cards of the victims, providing fake documents to the mobile service providers. With these duplicates in their possession, they would receive directly to their phones the second factor authentication codes the banks would send to confirm transfers.
The criminals then proceeded to make fraudulent transfers from the victims’ accounts to money mule accounts used to hide their traces. All this was done in a very short period of time – between one or two hours – which is the time it would take for the victim to realize that his/her phone number was no longer working.
read more (Europol)
Composed of nationals between the ages of 22-52 years old from Italy, Romania, Colombia and Spain, this criminal gang struck over 100 times, stealing between €6,000 and €137,000 from bank accounts of unsuspecting victims per attack.
The modus operandi was simple, yet effective. The criminals managed the obtain the online banking credentials from the victims of the different banks by means of hacking techniques such as the use of banking Trojans or other types of malware. Once they had these credentials, the suspects would apply for a duplicate of the SIM cards of the victims, providing fake documents to the mobile service providers. With these duplicates in their possession, they would receive directly to their phones the second factor authentication codes the banks would send to confirm transfers.
The criminals then proceeded to make fraudulent transfers from the victims’ accounts to money mule accounts used to hide their traces. All this was done in a very short period of time – between one or two hours – which is the time it would take for the victim to realize that his/her phone number was no longer working.
read more (Europol)
