Browsing the web has become a completely normal and daily action and consequently the online scams they confirm themselves as an increasingly pressing and evolving threat. Two brothers (aged 33 and 35) became protagonists of a scam that shocked Italy starting from Naples and Vicenza, managing to appropriate over 50.000 euro through a deception, now well known but still well planned, into which many users have fallen.
Disguising their messages as official communications from Poste Italiane, they induced several victims to hand over their credit cards, exploiting the fear of unauthorized banking movements. A series of scams that took place between January e May 2023 and who saw the police Vicenza e Napoli collaborate closely and then stop two of the main architects of this fraud.
How the PosteInfo SMS scam works
The scam, trivial as it seems, lay in fraudulent messages passed off as legitimate communications from Poste Info, a name cleverly chosen precisely in order to deceive users. Victims received notifications of anomalous movements on their cards, with the aim of creating an immediate state of alert.
At a later time, a fake operator contacted the victims with an announcement the arrival of a courier responsible for collecting the compromised cards and provide replacements. The economic damage suffered by individual victims has reached alarming figures, such as 3.000 e 8.000 €, leading to a total that even exceeded i 50.000 € before the culprits were arrested.
Llaw enforcement investigation and capture
The investigation that brought this to light complex network of scams was conducted by Carabinieri of Piovene Rocchette, in the province of Vicenza. The turning point has occurred thanks to the complaint of a young man Santorso, which allowed us to begin the investigations that led to the two brothers.
Thanks to the cooperation between the Carabinieri units of Vicenza and Company of Bagnoli in Naples, aprecautionary custody order which saw the two main suspects end up in jail arrest. In addition to the brothers, others 11 Guests were investigated for aiding and abetting, having been found to be connected to the events via the bank cards used to collect the scammed money. They were probably the couriers who went to the victims' homes to collect credit cards.
How to avoid these SMS scams
Your bank will always send you SMS for communications that they will never contain any link or links of any kind or invitations to call to a telephone number. In case of doubt, do not hesitate to contact your credit institution's call center on the official numbers to request confirmation of the operation. Very often these are frauds!
It should be noted that credit cards are NEVER taken from the bank, given that it only deals with the deactivation of the cards, while their destruction is up to you, the users. The new card will be delivered to you via ordinary mail to your residential address e you will have to activate it yourself, without the help of third parties.
