Albanian telephone fraudsters extort €4.7 million from hundreds of Italians, TCH reveals

Top Channel has cleared the file on the fraud through call-centers in Albania, where 17 people are accused of extorting about €4.7 million from 1200 Italians by inciting investment in cryptocurrencies, some of them already arrested and other declared wanted.

The criminal group that managed a Call Center in Tirana deceived hundreds of Italians to invest in the stock market and extorted their money with promises of quick profits.
In the Top Channel file are revealed several conversations conducted through call center operators and “victims” who fell prey to fraud.
The economic damage was so great that one of the victims stated in a phone call that he would kill himself after losing 31 thousand euros.
“On November 3, 2020, at 7:07 p.m. Fabio talks to the operator ‘Irina’, crying and complaining about the investment of 31 thousand euros saying he has no money left after he risked everything and was thinking of suicide. Irina refers to him that he still has to pay a commission for transfers equal to 4 thousand and 500 euros.
“Fabio informs her that he paid the last 4 thousand euros he had for the commissions of the two transfers, but ‘Irina’ refers that they don’t care if it’s the last money and that she has to pay anthe other tax for the Bank of England. The phone call is closed by agreeing to be heard later” – it says in the file.
How did the scam work?
The Italian victims were contacted by phone, they were offered the online purchase of “Amazon” shares with the false promise of earning large and fast sums. At the moment when the informed customer accepted the investment signature, an e-mail was sent to him containing a link through which he was connected to start buying the titles.
In this context, the victim had to download the “AnyDesk” application according to the caller’s instructions, effectively allowing the fraudster to login as an outsider to his computer and obtain the bank’s security codes, allowing him to enter directly into the account numbers. banking.
The same fraudsters, with the aim of getting more money from the “investors”, made the victims believe that in order to get possession of the very large sums earned through their investment, they must pay some kind of tax/commission according to the supposed rules, set by the European Central Bank since the Trading Company is located in England, that is outside the European Union.
Among other things, the investigations revealed that the criminal group was very careful in order not to be detected, as it performed the “AnyDesk” connection on the personal computers of the victims, using an Italian server of the provider Aruba, which in fact guaranteed the concealment the real IP address from which the communication originated.

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