The perpetrators tricked the victim into making different bank transfers as an investment in cryptocurrencies.
The Team of the island of Lanzarote, within the framework of the investigation carried out between the months of March and June of this year, identified 4 people alleged to be responsible for the criminal act, three men and one woman residing in Spain and France. aged between 35 and 45 years, with no police record, for a crime of fraud, having deceived a person habitually residing in Lanzarote with false advertising, into making different bank transfers as an investment in cryptocurrencies.
Occurrence of events
The Civil Guard became aware of a complaint filed last March by a man at the National Police of Arrecife, which was subsequently transferred to the Main Post of Tías, where the complainant reported being the victim of a technological scam. in which he reported being interested in investing in cryptocurrencies, contacting a supposed broker who would be in charge of making his investment profitable, which was initially 170.000 euros.
Therefore, the victim proceeded to make various bank transfers over a period of three months, depositing amounts of money that ranged between 3.000 euros and 57.000 euros, until reaching the total capital mentioned, the victim being a person with high purchasing power.
Likewise, once the corresponding transfers were made in favor of the alleged broker in different bank accounts, all communications ceased, and the victim realized at that moment that it was a fraud.
Start and development of research
During the course of the investigation carried out by the Team @ Lanzarote, the Civil Guard carried out the appropriate police investigations and took various steps to clarify the events that occurred, among them, they proceeded to identify all the people involved as the beneficiaries. of the current accounts for the destination of the defrauded capital, meaning that these accounts were opened in person. Also note that three of these people are responsible for companies related to the cryptocurrency market.
Fake brokers
Fake brokers pretend to be specialists in Cryptocurrency investments and attract their victims through misleading advertising.
For a long time, a manager contacts the client by telephone almost daily to achieve intimacy on a personal level, while making them see the supposed profits they are achieving thanks to their first investment, but also to highlight what they could gain if they raised their funds. All of this can be captured from applications manipulated by the Cyber Scammer, which are not real.
In this way they convince investors to make transfers, given that they fully trust in the business offered to them by their trusted 'brokers'.
At the moment in which the investor wants to withdraw his profits, problems begin with different excuses. Among them, they ask them to pay taxes to get more transfers, or they directly tell them that the market has changed and they have lost all their money.
After telling him that they have lost all their money, another Broker contacts the citizen, who tells him that he will help him recover what he lost with new investments, entering a spiral of losses until he "burns" the account.
For all these reasons, the proceedings carried out were made available to the Arrecife Guard Court.