team members of Albacete Civil Guardarrested a 49-year-old man as the perpetrator of a form of fraud crime known as “Beruan” within the framework of Operation “Beruan”. Business Email Compromise (BEC).
According to the Armed Research Institute, this type of fraud is a scam carried out by cyber criminals. Email address disguised as a legitimate email addressintercepts commerce You can transfer money to the bank account number you are interested in.
The investigation began in May last year, when the Albacete Civil Security Team learned that a resident of Ossa de Montiel (Albacete) received an email that appeared to be from a company with which he had business connections. He demanded payment of overdue bills worth €5,278.
After the money was transferred, the person contacted the company he owed the amount to and informed them that he had not received the payment, only to realize that he was the victim of a scam.
After hacking into the victim’s company email account and using a manipulative technique known as social engineering, the detainee was able to gain complete control over the email, allowing him to impersonate a supplier and contact the company by phone to notify him of unpaid invoices.
To complete the deception, the research subjects sent an email that looked very similar to what would normally be exchanged between the two companies. Supplier company changed credit account numberthus successfully directing the payments to a bank account controlled by him.
As a result of the immediate filing of a complaint by the victim and the efforts made by the team @ of the Civil Guard of Albacete in collaboration with the team @ Benemérita of Badajoz, we were able to determine the identity of the author of the fraud, the exit of the money was blocked, and the amount of 5,278 euros representing the fraud was recovered and returned to the victims.
The proceedings carried out by the Albacete Private Security Team were open to the public at the First Investigative Court in Villarobredo, the town of Albacete, where the case was heard.