A 19-year-old woman investigated for scamming 1,237 euros by posing as a bank employee

The alleged perpetrator would have deceived the victim, a resident of Lanzarote, who contracted a personal loan of 18,000 euros

October 13 2022 (09:57 WEST)
Updated in October 13 2022 (09:59 WEST)
A Civil Guard car in front of the Arrecife Courts
A Civil Guard car in front of the Arrecife Courts

The Civil Guard is investigating a 19-year-old woman, resident in Gerona, for a crime of fraud in the form of smishing, after having deceived a resident of Lanzarote by posing as a bank employee. The Civil Guard became aware of the case as a result of the complaint filed by the victim at the facilities of the Main Post of the Civil Guard of San Bartolomé, in December 2021.

The alleged perpetrator posed as an employee of the bank where the complainant has the account and informed her that it was blocked for security reasons. Then, she explained that to unblock it she should access the link that she sent by text message. Once the victim accesses the link sent by SMS, she no longer has access to her online banking.

Subsequently, the victim received a notification by SMS from her bank informing her that the contracting of a personal loan for an amount of 18,000 euros in her name had been authorized, which was not consented to at any time by the injured party. However, the investigated was only able to divert 1,237.92 euros from the complainant's assets.

The Team of the island of Lanzarote with the collaboration of the Organic Unit of Judicial Police of the Civil Guard of Gerona, carried out the appropriate investigations managing to identify and locate the person responsible for the fraud.

The modus operandi carried out, smishing, is a technique that consists of sending an SMS by a cybercriminal to a user simulating being a legitimate entity -social network, bank, public institution, etc. -with the aim of stealing private information or making an economic charge.

Generally the message invites you to call a special rate number or access a link to a fake website under a pretext.

Most read