Pau Gasol and Draymond Jamal Green during a match between Spain and the USA at the Tokyo 2020 Games. /
police operation
The diverted transfer came from the US Federation on the occasion of a match played by the national team
Agents of the National Police have arrested a man in Malaga as the alleged perpetrator of a crime of fraud, since he allegedly managed to supplant the email of the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB) to divert a transfer that his American counterpart had to make with reason for a match played by the Spanish team in the United States.
The 63-year-old man and owner of a bank account located in a branch in the capital of Malaga, received 143,432 dollars (about 138,000 euros), managing to block and recover 91,490 euros, the provincial police station reported in a statement. .
The investigation started after the FEB complaint, filed in November 2021, at the Chamartín National Police Station (Madrid). In it, it was reported that, after the celebration of a meeting between the basketball teams of Spain and the United States, they should have received the agreed amount of 143,432 dollars from the American federation.
After the detailed investigation, it was verified that allegedly through social engineering of data collection, the address of the FEB was supplanted and contacted with the American federation to communicate a change of bank account, where the payment should take place, this scam being known as ‘Man in the middle’.
The agents found out that the office that received the payment was located in Malaga, and from that moment on, operational coordination with Group I of Economic Crimes of the Provincial Police Station of the Andalusian city was necessary.
Once the appropriate steps were taken with the bank branch, the agents verified that, initially, a total of 143,432 dollars had been transferred to said account. In addition, they observed that an extraction of money had already been made, subtracting a total amount of 91,490 euros from the account. For this reason, the blocking of the account was requested to avoid subsequent movements and the intervention of the money.
Thus, on June 15, the account holder was located and arrested by investigators. This had a history of the same nature. The arrested and the instructed official were placed at the disposal of the Investigating Court number 11 of Madrid.
