Police ‘stop’ a housing rental scam in Alicante

The National Police have detained a 30-year-old woman in Alicante for her role in a roughly 12,000-euro scam involving the renting of phantom properties, as well as one of the women she used as bank mules to deposit the stolen funds into her accounts.

Investigators have found up to ten individuals who have incurred losses totalling €11,717. In addition to the two detainees, authorities have identified two other women involved in the scheme, both of whom live in different provinces.

The police launched the inquiry after receiving a series of complaints about scams involving the leasing of residences in Alicante via internet platforms.

The victims made contact with the tenant via an instant messaging service, and after that was established, the alleged landlord sought a deposit or deposits from the interested individual. He then asked the interested party drawn to the advertisement to pay the amount, either by bank transfer or through a well-known instant payment service provider.

However, the putative landlord discontinued contact with the impacted individuals after collecting the necessary sum.

Scammed money

The accused woman was thus soliciting possible landlords, although the funds were not transferred to any accounts in her name. Instead, she had provided account information for individuals she had previously recruited as bank mules.

Initial police investigations resulted in the arrest of one of these individuals, who was hired as a “mule” to furnish her bank information. She was a 38-year-old woman living in Alicante who was facing financial difficulties and accepted a phoney job offer to rent out homes in the city.

The terms of the supposed job offer required him to furnish the recruiter with his bank account information and transaction codes so that the latter could take control of the account and run it freely, given that his account would receive funds from the ghost apartments and rooms offered for rent.

Afterwards, he had to withdraw money from the account at an ATM and send it over to whomever the recruiter instructed him to, all in exchange for a cash advantage.

Furthermore, she was told when she was employed that she needed to clean the homes, but she was never forced to do so because the residences did not exist.

The recruiter obtained the mule’s bank information and started managing her account, even coercing her into providing a copy of her ID, which granted the recruiter more authority to act on her behalf.

The “mule” received a message on social media from someone claiming she had been duped out of 600 euros. She contacted the recruiter and informed her she would take care of the problem. However, she was blocked and could no longer contact her.

The investigation led cops to the recruiter, who was the primary architect of the fraud. They also determined that she had developed similar links in Alicante with other women who served as bank mules for her. The operation finished with her arrest and the identification of two more women residing in different provinces who were also involved in the frauds under investigation.