In the operation called «CULCITA», the Guardia Civil of the Almeria Command dismantled the economic network of a criminal organisation and arrested 11 people in Valencia, Cordoba and Barcelona for crimes of technological fraud and membership of a criminal organisation, after defrauding a resident of Almeria of nearly 30,000 euros.
This investigation began as a result of several complaints filed by the victim, between July and October of last year, where he informed the Guardia Civil of Almeria that he had been robbed of the bank codes with which he had made several money transfers to other unknown accounts for a value of around 30,000 euros. In addition, the victim received phone calls from a member of the criminal organisation pretending to be a police officer, informing him that they were investigating his case, in an attempt to prevent him from officially filing a complaint.
In this type of fraud, the alleged fraudsters get hold of the victim’s bank codes, making several transfers to different «economic mules», who deliver the money to the «mule captors», who then hand it over to the «economic manager», who receives the total amount of money stolen and finally transfers it to the leader of the criminal organisation.
In the development of this operation, a total of eleven (11) people of Armenian, Azerbaijani and Spanish origin, based in the towns of Carcaixent (Valencia), Puente Genil (Córdoba) and Barcelona, one of them being the «economic responsible», two «mule captors» and eight «economic mules», were arrested for the crimes of technological fraud and belonging to a criminal organisation.
After the arrests, the @ team of the Almeria Command continued with the investigation and managed to identify the leader of the organisation based in Russia and recover 8,000 euros, which were returned to the victim.
The proceedings were handed over to the Juzgado de Primera Instancia e Instrucción Nº 6 of El Ejido.
The Guardia Civil reminds that in the communications that the banks send via SMS, they never request personal data or bank passwords, recommending not to access any of the internet links received, and should contact their bank in case of doubting the legitimacy of any of these communications.
