The complaint of an elderly woman from Spain, who was scammed out of 800,000 euros in 2018, has now led to the arrest of an international gang of scammers. The criminals are estimated to have stolen 2.4 billion euros from fraudulent trading of cryptocurrencies. According to current knowledge, more than 17,000 investors have been scammed in Spain alone, the Spanish police unit Guardia Civil reported on Monday. The total number of victims could run into the hundreds of thousands.
Spanish officials, working with the country’s authorities, arrested the two suspected gang leaders in Albania on November 8 and 9. Investigations, conducted jointly by colleagues from Germany and other European countries, are underway against 16 other suspects, it said.
Potential victims were called from call centers in Albania and other countries. The callers “pretend to be well versed in the financial world. They manipulated their victims with persuasion techniques and promised high profits. Many would have trusted the gang and, above all, transferred larger and larger amounts for alleged transactions with cryptocurrencies. The criminals often managed to install remote access software on victims’ computers. There was also a criminal call center with about 800 employees in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. This one was resolved.
Detective: ‘Gang earned 400 euros per minute’
“We estimate that the gang earned about 400 euros per minute,” it says. But now it’s broken. “They thought they could work with impunity, but now they came in for a nasty surprise,” says a spokesman for the Guardia Civil. Numerous employees of the network apparently knew nothing about the criminal background. They should not be held accountable by the authorities of the country concerned, a police spokesman said when asked. The number of victims in Germany and other countries was not reported.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
