Three members of a criminal group, specialising in cyber scams, have been arrested by the Civil Guard in connection with a fraudulent scheme targeting Torre Pacheco Town Council. The group is alleged to have deceived the council out of four hundred and fifty-five thousand euros using a ‘man in the middle’ technique.

The operation, named ‘Financiero’, successfully blocked the bank account into which the money was transferred before it could be moved elsewhere. The fraud was reported in March of the previous year, when unidentified individuals pretended to be the electricity supplier of the town council.

The scammers managed to obtain details of pending invoices and communicated with municipal departments, requesting payment for invoices that amounted to nearly half a million euros. They claimed that the usual bank account had been cancelled, directing payment to a different account instead.

The deception was uncovered shortly after, following a reminder message from the legitimate electricity provider regarding the unpaid invoices. Authorities have identified a Romanian national, aged thirty-four, as the presumed intellectual author of the fraud, and efforts are underway to apprehend him. The investigation remains ongoing.