For this, they created some 500 customer accounts through which they made purchases using more than 400 virtual cards and then returned the products without sending them.
Agents of the National Police 25 young people have been arrested for cheat more than half a million euros through the purchase of a multinational e-commerce company to which they requested the reimbursement of products saying that they were defective, but they did not return them and put them up for sale.
For this they created a 500 customer accounts through which they made purchases using more than 400 virtual cardsaccording to the police in a press release.
Once they received the orders, they claimed to the company that they had not received them or that they had some defect, requesting a refund but not returning the products that they later sold on sales pages.
The investigation, which culminated a month ago with the arrests, began in January of last year when the agents learned that several young people had sent several empty envelopes as a result of a return of several orders instead of including the product itself.
They also verified that each of the shipments corresponded to a different customer account and, once the investigations were advanced, they were able to verify that there was a group of young people who were engaged in fraud at a multinational electronic commerce company.
The modus operandi was create customer accounts to which they subsequently associated a virtual payment card with which they made numerous purchases, mainly high-end electronic products.
Once they received the order, they contacted the company claiming not to have received the product or to have a defect, then requesting the return of the same and the reimbursement of the payment.
The scam ended when they went to mail delivery companies to deliver empty envelopes with the assigned return label instead of physically returning the purchased product itself.
The researchers found that later many of the products were sold through different buying and selling websites.
Once the agents managed to identify all those involved, and thanks to the continuous collaboration with the company’s security department, a device was established that ended on June 8 with the arrest of 25 young people – between 20 and 35 years – and the registration of four addresses.
In them they found numerous electronic effects, cash as well as documentation related to the criminal acts.