IN the fourth phase of 'Operation Nile', in which 70 agents of various national and international law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have participated, eleven houses were searched and 28 Nigerians were arrested in Roquetas de Mar. Those arrested are presumed members of five different organised groups dedicated to conning money from people by sending them letters telling them that they had won money on the lottery, but to receive their winnings first the victims had to pay for the transmission of the prize money. The police found during the searches: 1,200 letters, ready to be sent, lists of names and addresses of people living outside Spain and templates of letters with the logotypes and letterheads of official organisations, for use in word processing programmes.
The police estimate that the groups involved in this fraud are responsible for sending 1.2 million letters a year from which they have obtained more than a million euros.
Operation Nile has resulted in the arrest of a total of 219 people in Madrid, Malaga and Valencia of whom 127 are now in prison and 25 have been expelled to Nigeria. They have been accused of a total of 562 cases of fraud for a total of about 10 million euros. The majority of victims of this type of confidence trick never go to the police.
No comments:
Post a Comment