A vast email scam case in France and Belgium has been dismantled. The scammers used false legal summonses that they sent by e-mail to their victims accusing them of having consulted child pornography images on the Internet.
Nearly 19 people were arrested, the vast majority of them on the French side. But, certain IP addresses and bank movements reveal links with Côte d’Ivoire, announced the police and gendarmes in charge of the investigation, announced this Friday. At the end of their police custody, fifteen people were summoned before the criminal court. They are suspected of having participated in a scam involving false court summonses. In the name of the police, the gendarmerie, magistrates or institutions, emails were sent to the victims, accusing them of having consulted child pornography images on the internet.
The emails were thus intended to be very professional with reference to articles of law. The recipients were threatened with being placed on the National Sex Offender Registry and their identities revealed to the general public at unless they pay a fine.
A scam that brought in 3.5 million euros
The recipe is very lucrative. It brought in at least 3.5 million euros to the 19 suspects, who do not belong to a single network.
If the emails were sent to tens of thousands of people, those who fell into the trap often have the same profile. “ They are just men between 50 and 90 who are not very tech-savvy, new technologies. There are people who stress only because they have received an email where there is a police, gendarmerie logo. There are people who are psychologically fragile. The goal is to create stress in the person who receives the email, rightly or wrongly, and thus encourage him to pay »explains thee colonel Thomas Andreu of the research section of the gendarmerie of Versailles.
Stress such that investigations were opened to assess the link between the scam and the suicide of six victims. In all, 400 people filed a complaint in France, mBut emails continue to circulate in other countries now. The contents were translated and sent to Romania, Italy or Switzerland.