The Public Ministry (MP) of Faro has charged 71 people with crimes related to computer fraud, money laundering and criminal associations, some of which belonged to the Brazilian criminal organization Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), it was announced this Monday.
According to a report published on the portal of the Regional Prosecutor General’s Office of Évora, the accused, citizens of Portugal and Brazil, as well as people from African countries, collected data and access codes for bank accounts to which they had access and deducted money.
According to the deputy, the accused operated through a technique called “phishing” by creating a fake page identical to the pages of banking institutions to convince victims that they were logging into the real portals of their banks and entering their credentials there.
Having the data, the criminals entered the victim’s bank account through a real bank page and programmed a money transfer to the bank account of another element associated with the organization, the deputy clarifies.
Later, he adds, under the guise of a bank employee, they called the victim and said that they had discovered a fake bank transaction and that to cancel it they needed a code that the bank was going to send to their mobile phone.
The defendants then created a second page that reflected the fraudulent transaction, which was approached by the victim, already convinced that they were real bank employees and wanted to cancel the transfer.
As the defendants continued to talk to the victim on the phone, the victim gave them a code that allowed them to confirm the bank transfer transaction and then transfer the money through various bank accounts between Portugal and Brazil to launder it, the document said. note.
According to the deputy, the success of the crime is related to the speed with which computer operations were carried out using computers that may be located in a third country, and the trust that the accused showed in the dialogue with the victim.
According to prosecutors, it is a well-structured organization in which the accused have specific functions, namely those who handled IT, those who called victims and those who provided bank accounts for the circulation of money.
The indictment against 71 defendants was filed on April 22 by the Director of the Department of Investigation and Criminal Affairs (DIAP) of Faro District following an investigation carried out by the Judicial Police.