Spanish media have revealed more details from the operation organized together with Special Prosecution against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) a few weeks ago, where 4 people were arrested and 5 others were wanted for Call Centers fraud.

In total, 200,000 citizens have fallen prey to this fraud scheme in Europe, most of them in Germany, Italy and Spain.

An international investigation has identified some of the criminal networks behind more than 470 fraudulent investment websites.

During the operations of November 8 and 9 in Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, North Macedonia and Ukraine, 15 call centers were checked.

From the analysis of all the emails, the Spanish Police estimate that there may be at least 17,000 people who have fallen prey to this scam in Spain alone.

According to police sources, criminals have amassed $2.5 billion from hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Among those scammed is an 80-year-old woman who lost more than $837,000 investing in cryptocurrencies, while a 61-year-old still continues to receive calls from fraudsters.

“I often wonder how this could happen to me”, Carlos said.

On his part, the 61-year-old businessman from Madrid first learned about one of the fraudulent investment platforms on Facebook and became very addicted to them in a very short time.

Like everyone else, he invested very little only $260 but then daily calls pushed him to invest $63,000.

When he tried to withdraw his money, it was impossible. 

Police said the money is never invested and the data and charts customers see on the websites are fake. Four years later, Carlos still receives phone calls from scammers, as reported.