After more than a year of investigation, the Val-d’Oise police arrested a group of crooks. For months, criminals stole packages contained in Amazon’s secure boxes, the famous lockers, before reselling them. In total, the damage approaches half a million euros.
While Microsoft and Amazon recently put an end to a network of telephone support scams, the Val-d’Oise police force has to put an end to a scam involving Amazon Locker, secure boxes which allow collect your package self-service.
Suffice it to say that the criminals’ modus operandi was particularly well-established. As the Isle-Adam Research Brigade explains in an official press release, the damage is rather significant: €470,000 worth of goods stolen in totalmainly composed of High-Tech or luxury products.
A flaw in the security of Amazon boxes
How did they do it? According to details from law enforcement, the scammers found a way to bypass Amazon Locker security protocols, so that the packages can be retrieved without alerting the computer system. In order to exploit this loophole, this organized gang asked their family members to place several orders on the merchant site.
Once the packages were delivered to the boxes, the scammers recovered the products… Before telling Amazon after-sales service that their orders had been stolen. For Amazon services, it was difficult to question customers’ words, since the boxes were actually empty. You will have understood, for the criminals, profits were doubled : Amazon refunded the amount of the order, while the recovered products were then sold by a receiver in a second-hand store.
Also read: Amazon – a new scam passes off empty notebooks as real books
Five people indicted
As reported by our colleagues from Le Parisien, the Isle-Adam Research Brigade was originally seized in November 2022 by the Pontoise public prosecutor’s office after the discovery of several anomalies during Amazon deliveries in Val-d’Oise . It took a year of investigation to put an end to the deception.
This November 14, 2023, the police took action and arrested six individuals suspected of organized gang fraud and criminal association during an operation. As part of the investigations, eleven people were also interviewed. Of these six defendants, five were indicted and tried in immediate appearance. They are now placed under judicial supervision. During the searches carried out at the homes of the criminals, the gendarmes got their hands on dozens of high-tech products (game consoles, smartphones, etc.) and luxury products, as well as €8,500 in cash.