The Civil Guard has solved the scam suffered by a wine company in Lanzarote, which suffered the attack of a cybercriminal, who seized 38,000 euros from its accounts. After identifying the alleged perpetrator, who is only 21 years old, the agents have been able to recover 28,143 euros, which have already been returned to their owner.
The investigation was carried out by the @ Lanzarote Team, within the framework of Operation Breval, and the investigations led them to Vigo, where the alleged perpetrator of the scam resided. According to the Benemérita, the young man managed to take control of the company's email, modifying a bank transfer order, impersonating the legitimate person. Specifically, he modified the file where the destination account details were, and transferred the economic amount to a different account.
After receiving the complaint, this Civil Guard team, focused on the fight against internet scams, carried out the appropriate police investigations and identified these events as "one of the most lucrative scams that are usually carried out on companies by e-mail through identity theft, this method being known as BEC, Business Email Compromise".
"In this type of attack, cybercriminals access email systems or use social engineering tactics to obtain information about corporate payment systems and then trick employees into making transfers to their bank accounts," explain the Civil Guard.
Likewise, Team @ was able to detect how the alleged perpetrator first managed to divert that bank transfer worth 38,000 euros to another account, and then made cash withdrawals "at ATMs where he knew that there were no security cameras that could record his graphic movements and complicate identification tasks."
"It is worth highlighting the speed of action of Team @ was fundamental, since once the origin of the bank account was located, it was possible to carry out the appropriate procedures with the entity that allowed the return of 28,143.85 euros to its legitimate owner," the Benemérita emphasizes.
