DIAP of Faro accuses 71 people of various crimes including computer fraud

On April 22, the Director of the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP) of the district of Faro, accused 30 Portuguese men and women, 29 Brazilian men and women, 12 African men and women for the crimes of criminal association, money laundering and computer fraud.

DIAP of Faro says that some of the defendants belong to the Brazilian criminal organization called Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and were dedicated to capturing data and access codes to bank accounts, with a view to later accessing the computer systems of credit institutions. and subsequently subtract money from bank accounts.

The defendants created a false page to access a banking institution; when the victim accessed the fake page thinking they were accessing the real page, their data was captured; immediately, with the captured data, the defendants entered the victim’s bank account through the bank’s real page and programmed a monetary transfer to a bank account of a defendant linked to the organization; subsequently, posing as a bank employee, they called the victim to inform him that they had detected a false banking transaction, but that to cancel it they needed the code that the bank was going to send to the cell phone; Then, the defendants created a second false page, where they mirrored the fraudulent operation, which the victim accessed.

At this point, the victim was already convinced that the defendants were bank employees and that they wanted to cancel the transfer. Immediately, the defendants confirmed the bank transfer and the bank sent the code to the victim’s cell phone. As the defendants remained on the phone with the victim, the victim told them which code they entered into the account and thus validated the operation. Subsequently, the money circulated through various bank accounts between Brazil and Portugal in order to be laundered.

The success of the crime lies in the speed with which computer operations are carried out through computers that may be hosted in a third country and in the credibility that the defendants bring to the dialogue with the victim.

The organization’s structure is divided into functions. There are defendants who deal with the IT side, there are those who call the victim and those who make bank accounts available in order to circulate the money.

The Faro Public Prosecutor’s Office adds in its brief that the investigation was carried out by the Judiciary Police.