Ten people have been arrested in Cabo Roig and Torrevieja, as well as in Los Urrutias (Murcia), for multiple scams committed throughout the country through the use of modified ID cards with which they signed contracts with telephone companies or bank cards, the National Police reported.
The holders of these altered ID cards had mostly reported fraudulent contracts in their name with various mobile phone companies, and evidence was also found of credit card applications using one of these altered ID cards.
The main members of the plot arrested are four men aged between 20 and 46, of British and Norwegian nationality, who have already been brought before the on-call court of Orihuela. The other six arrested were those who worked as “mules” or people who provided their data for the scams.
The gang’s first objective was to obtain images of original ID cards in order to modify them using computer techniques by superimposing another person’s photograph in place of the real photograph of the holder of the altered ID card. They then began to operate with the falsified ID cards, carrying out various types of fraud ranging from signing up for telephone line contracts to formalising credit card contracts.
It was a hierarchical and tiered structure, with one of those arrested directing all operations and deciding what type of scam to carry out with each document at any given time, and the next lowest level being the “procurer” of possible financial “mules”, telephone cards or documents with which to impersonate their victims.
At the last step of the plot was the figure of another of those involved, who was in charge of recruiting people who would lend their image to be used in false documentation, creating accounts or telephone lines, always usurping the identity of other people. For this function, predominantly, Irish girls were sought, who, in exchange for this, received a financial reward.
Among the seized documents were found instructions for obtaining documents by deception, as well as lists of names of people associated with his documents and bank account with express indications of the balance.
Among the items seized there was also a USB memory stick with images of original ID cards and images of these same ID cards modified with the photograph of a person other than that of its holder, being an unknown male and different from those arrested in the operation.
In addition, narcotic substances were found in the house searches of the leader of the plot in Los Urrutias, as well as of another of those involved in Cabo Roig, and 1,100.91 grams of marijuana and 10 acorns of hashish were counted, weighing 112.16 grams, for which they were also accused of a crime of drug trafficking, along with the crimes of fraud and belonging to a criminal group that they shared with the rest of those arrested.
28 mobile phones, many of them high-end, were also seized from the homes of those arrested, along with 1,200 telephone SIM cards, 2,350 euro in cash, two high-end watches, and other electronic storage devices.
As for the investigations, they are not yet considered completely concluded, since new arrests are not ruled out and the search for possible victims is still ongoing given the huge amount of data found in the records.
