As part of the «Fruits and Frenex» operations, the Guardia Civil has dismantled a criminal organisation dedicated to technological fraud by usurping the identity of sales representatives in the fruit and vegetable sector in order to make large purchases of products that were never paid for, subsequently sending them to other European countries to make them difficult to trace. So far, we are aware of the theft of around 130,000 euros from six companies located in the provinces of Almeria and Malaga.
These operations have been carried out jointly by personnel from EDITE and Team @ of the UOPJ of the Command of the Civil Guard of Almeria and the Investigation Area of the Main Post of the Civil Guard of Torrox-Algarrobo (Malaga), in addition to the collaboration of the Centre for Police and Customs Cooperation (CCPA) coordinating the French Gendarmerie.
The investigation began in mid-2022 following complaints from different fruit and vegetable companies located in the provinces of Almeria and Malaga.
Modus operandi: This type of fraud consists of the alleged fraudsters pretending to be sales representatives of fruit and vegetable companies, to which they did not belong, located in the provinces of Almeria and Murcia. To do so, they were perfectly aware of their location and internal structure, as well as the contact telephone numbers, commercial e-mail accounts and managers or persons in charge of the company, in order to give credibility to their commercial status. Once the perpetrators managed to gain the trust of the seller of the companies concerned, and to get in contact through the instant messaging application, they placed orders for goods, for amounts ranging from €10,000 to €50,000, which were sent to traders in EU countries, in particular to France, Holland and Germany. They also used a complex mechanism for sending the products, making several stops along the way before reaching the final destination of the goods, in order to make them difficult to trace.
An arduous joint investigation by Guardia Civil units from the Almeria and Malaga Command, as well as the collaboration of the French Gendarmerie, has resulted in the identification and arrest of the main perpetrator and 4 other people who participated in carrying out the criminal acts. Likewise, 19 bank accounts have been blocked, recovering an approximate amount of 14,500 euros, and a study of these accounts has revealed income of almost 900,000 euros over a period of one year.
As a result of the «Fruits and Frenex» operations, the Guardia Civil has arrested a total of five people of Moroccan, Colombian and Spanish origin, one of them being the leader of the criminal group and the rest collaborators, based in the town of Burriana (Castellón), who have been charged with the crimes of aggravated technological fraud, false documentation and belonging to a criminal group.
The proceedings have been sent to the competent courts in each case in the towns of Torrox (Málaga), Huércal-Overa (Almería), Roquetas de Mar (Almería) and El Ejido (Almería).
