Notice of investigation conclusion for 48 people - Italians, Albanians, and Romanians - investigated by the Naples Prosecutor's Office for an extensive system of banking and postal frauds against dozens of unsuspecting users, who saw their bank accounts drained or diminished. A sort of international scam 2.0, which netted at least 50 hits between 2016 and 2019, came to light thanks to a complaint filed with the postal police of Genoa by a Ligurian company active in the food sector.
The first investigations by the investigators in the provinces of Caserta and Naples, where, the carabinieri of Marcianise and the Postal Police with the coordination of the prosecutor of Naples Claudio Orazio Onorati (of the computer crimes pool) found the operational base of the association, divided into four "cells", interconnected with each other.
Thus, there was the Spanish cell, led by the 34-year-old Albanian Anton Pllumbi, the cell of Villa Literno, at whose top, according to the investigators, were the suspects Michele Pepe and Raffaele Squillante, the cell of Castel Volturno whose leaders are considered the suspects Carmine Costanzo, Rosalia De Bello, and Francesco Ruggiero; and finally, the cell of Marcianise, led by the suspects Giacomo, Mario, and Pierluigi Clarelli, Michele Comando, and Raffaele Palmiero.
In each group, the leaders were involved in finding compliant telecommunication company dealers and money mules, those who would then have to withdraw the money. The crimes charged vary, including criminal association, money laundering, unauthorized access to a computer or telecommunication system, possession and manufacture of identification documents, computer fraud, and counterfeiting of a public authentication or certification stamps.
The criminal group had devised an ingenious system to infiltrate the computer systems of various banking institutions and Italian Post to arrange transfers from the bank accounts of unsuspecting owners, inserting friendly bank coordinates where the proceeds of the fraud would flow. There were three key moments of the fraud: the first consisted of unlawfully obtaining data, documents, and codes of the account belonging to the identified victim; then the victim's telephone network was isolated, and a transfer of the line to a new SIM card activated at a point of sale using forged documents was carried out at a compliant dealer, where the security device codes of the account were received.
The last step was the arrangement of the transfer to an account traceable to the fraudsters, with the money being withdrawn by the money mules who monetized the scam by withdrawing the money or making other transfers. Victims were found all over Italy; a Sorrento account holder had 61 thousand euros stolen.
During the investigation, 35 searches were also carried out in Italy, which led to the arrest in flagrante of 4 people accused of document forgery, computer fraud, illegal carrying of weapons, and unauthorized access to bank accounts. During the checks, carabinieri and police officers recovered numerous documents and information devices. In the coming days, the prosecutor is expected to make his requests for indictment.