Do you have more work than usual lately with online purchases?
We have been having a lot of work for some time.I have been with this issue since 2005, but in the National Police the first unit was created in 2002.The use of an exponential way has been generalized, but we all have a mobile phone and, from there, we can do everything.
Do criminals come more on the mobile than other ways?
What we lack is a culture of cybersecurity.We have not transferred the prevention we have in the physical world to cyberspace.The possibilities opened by a mobile are greater than those of the computer.The mobile is more immediate.We received a message that a package has arrived and we have to pay 79 euros because it is standing at customs, we are doing something else and click on the link and put the card number.That is what cybercriminals take advantage of.It is very curious that in Spain there are twice as many mobile phones as inhabitants.
Are there more cases of this type of scams in A Coruña than before?
In this case, it cannot be centralized in a certain site.They are cyclic campaigns.When we are in the rental campaign, for example, criminals use the tax agency logo, when pandemic -related aids were enabled, the SEPE was posed, now that we had just passed the Black Friday and ChristmasThey use everything related to packages.They use anything that coincides with the space-time to try to subtract the money of their victims, which is what matters to them.We cannot say that it is something concrete in A Coruña, it is general.What we know is that, although before they were very complex criminal organizations, which now continues to have them, in the Dark Web you can get a tool that allows you to make homemade phishing, which anyone can use.
Do they have an approximation of the money stolen in A Coruña in recent years for these methods?
There is everything, bank phishing has moved from email to the phone and SMS because people began to take more precautions.When they supplant the identity of a banking entity, the amounts fraud are normally higher, depending on the money that the victim has in the account.If we talk about entering the card number to make the payment, for example, of a package or a customs rate, the amount is smaller.
According to crime data, more is denounced.
Yes.What interests us is that people denounce, although they believe it is little, so that we can investigate and we can do intelligence of all that information and we can stop the authors.
When criminals finally arrive, are people already experienced in robberies or fans?
There is everything.The casuistry is very big.In relation to bank scams we have arrested people who, voluntarily, have lent their identity and accounts to receive money from scams.This is what we know as mules.After discounted a commission, which is the profit they receive, they send that money outside of Spain.They are participants in the scam and are authors of a money laundering and we go to oral trials with these investigations.
Now data bailouts with cryptocurrencies are also requested, does this payment method difficult?
It is another type of fraud, they threaten you with something that may be true or not.They play with your reaction, they tell you that you have visited pornographic pages or that you have trafficked with weapons or that they have images of you.It is nothing more than spam, even if your email appears, because your mail can be on two million websites and you have facilitated it to 1.5 million.What criminals are looking for is also anonymity and look for money laundering in the safer media for them, for that they introduce cryptocurrencies.We follow the money trail and we have come to stop the authors.
They use emails, SMS and WhatsApp, what can we do to prevent being victims?
What cybercounts are looking for is that you feel urgency, that you have to solve something already, and as we are in this culture of wanting things for yesterday, we accept the conditions without reading them.If you have not bought anything, how is it possible that you will pay something that you have not bought or to pay for releasing a package that is in a customs if you are not waiting for anything?
"A photo of the ID can be used to commit scams"
How to act before a message that already seems strange?
We have to forget the urgency.Our banking entity will never ask us that you already have.If they tell us that they will block our account, the first thing is to think: "If you block it, what happens?"Nothing happens, we go to the bank and they solve it.A password will never ask us either.In the event that we have put the leg and have provided information, which the bank will never ask us is that we send a double authentication factor, an alphanumeric key to sign an operation.It is as if I put an alarm and a bad thing comes, let him pass and tell him to take whatever he wants.If we have doubts, we can call the bank, search the Internet or call 091, or 017, because we are here to help, and that we do nothing we would not do in the physical world.In purchase-sale operations, there are people who leave commerce applications and exchange messages on WhatsApp where they facilitate copies of the ID or their images with the DNI in the hand.That can never be done, because it is a problem at elders.Those identities are used to commit scams.It is also important to have the equipment and applications updated because they improve security.
Sometimes the scams arrive from the phone of an agenda contact, what can be done?
It is best to call that contact and ask him, because surely his phone has been violated.They are trying to install my WhatsApp on another phone, if I do not provide them with the code, they cannot do it.We can also invest a little time to improve the security of our devices to get a call or a mail in case of installing the application on another phone.We will solve many security problems if we forget the haste and respond quickly.There are also cases of companies to those who cheat through the mail, providing suppliers even copying the way of expressing themselves of the aforementioned assumptions...In this case, those of us who have urgency are us to know as soon as this scam has occurred to block the money and recover it.We recently recovered 90.000 euros.
The possible Timo of the NATO soldier in Ukraine
Is there a victim profile?
You can chop anyone, although love scams affect people more living between 60 or 70 years.They give everything to keep a distance relationship alive.It is the usual scam transferred to social networks.The scammers tell the victims what they want to hear.It can be a navy captain or a doctor in Iraq, surely, now a NATO soldier for Ukraine appears, who begins to ask for 500 euros to send a suitcase and, then, if they give up, 10.000 to evacuate your family.They are scams that can last about eight months.
And don't they realize before?
It is curious, because some victims although they have lost a lot of money do not lose hope.In that case we make reverse searches, to teach them that this photo comes out on thousands of websites.The same goes for flash scams.If you see a precious floor for 200 euros and look on Google and it appears in 17 cities, it is not real.
Now there are calls from people who claim to be from Light Companies to hire services, can it be considered a scam?
It is more of the same, they are calls that seek that the victim scares, in addition, if we see that it is a telephone of our city it is easier for us to take.
Do you also investigate crimes derived from the dissemination of photos or sensitive material?
Yes.Ten years ago we investigated the case of Palexqueras.In the end, it was a minor who, for doing the nonsense, began to send photos he had received.Many parents realized, then, that their children had photos on the semi -naked mobile and sent them as if nothing happened.Would you go half -naked down the street or deliver printed photos of yours?That two people send photos among them is not a crime, but the consequences must be anticipated because who is your partner today may not be tomorrow.