It’s a scam that claimed thousands of victims and whose suspected mastermind was underage. Nine people were indicted on Friday March 31 in Paris in a case of fraud fake bank advisors. These nine people, seven adults and two minors, were arrested on Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the matter. One of the miners was imprisoned.
According to the daily The Dispatch, a 17-year-old man from Toulouse is suspected of being the mastermind of these numerous scams. He telephoned people, pretending to be an official of the BNP fraud department, telling them that their accounts had been hacked, giving them precise information on their financial situation. He then asked them to validate on their phone a “refund notification”which was actually a trap.
Of the “thousands of people were defrauded between January 2022 and March 2023”, depending on the daily. According to a source close to the case, the damage would be at this stage several hundred thousand euros, but could be reassessed upwards if new victims declare themselves.
Presented to a Parisian investigating judge on Friday, according to the same judicial source, the persons involved were indicted for fraud in an organized gang, criminal association, money laundering, several offenses related to automated data processing systems, collection of personal data, concealment of crime. In addition to the minor placed in pre-trial detention, the eight other people were placed under judicial control, still according to this same source.