‘Drug trafficking is already super-primitive; the most sophisticated thing is to invest in cybercrime. Organised crime is not just on the streets. It is now moving into this dark digital underworld, an ever-growing threat. The chief inspector who unravels online crime in the Malaga National Police, Andrés Román, warns of a changing trend among criminals, who are now also using ‘perfect tools’ for ‘digital laundering’ of capital through a ‘new financial economy’. Cryptocurrency scams, e-commerce in fake or overpriced goods and online gambling platforms to convert illicit funds into seemingly legitimate profits are some examples.
Technological progress has been decisive in the proliferation of cybercrime, which between January and September 2024 exceeded 13,000 reports on the Costa del Sol, according to the latest crime balance of the Ministry of the Interior. ‘Right now, the volume of cybercrime we are seeing is higher than in many countries. We have to adapt to Artificial Intelligence; we can no longer distinguish the real from the synthetic,’ says the researcher in an interview with this newspaper. But don't be fooled. Despite the fact that AI has already left the realm of science fiction to creep into our lives and is set to lead a revolution comparable to the one generated by the internet, it is not yet the cornerstone for criminals to perpetrate attacks. ‘Contrary to what one might think, 90% of these attacks are committed by deceiving us visually, aurally or cognitively,’ emphasises the police chief. This fraud on the senses ‘is not going to disappear’, although it has become more sophisticated with technology. ‘Everything is based on emotions, we are still going to be weak,’ he says.
The case of the young woman who seduced 1,000 men with a montage of her body
A paradigmatic example of how cybercrime has become ‘democratised’ was a 26-year-old woman who allegedly seduced 1,000 men with a montage of her body using Artificial Intelligence. Of these, she managed to extort money from 311 - many of them young men without financial resources. His aim was to blackmail them by broadcasting sex videos.
In six months, with a smartphone and a photo montage application, he created a ‘micro-business’ that earned him 16,000 euros. ‘We realised that he was a real person, although quite retouched. He used filters to alter his image and modify his hips,’ recalls the head of the cybercrime group.
In the first phase of the investigation, the police set out to ‘accumulate evidence’ to get into what they call ‘the author's burrow’, because, says the inspector, ‘the arrest is not as important as opening Pandora's box and obtaining data used to commit the crime’.
The suspect, who was not imprisoned, also posed as a prostitute and demanded payment in advance. She summoned men, but she never showed up. She was even reprimanded by married couples who fell into the trap and paid up to twice for a supposed sexual encounter.
The police emphasise the black figure that lies beneath the tip of the iceberg of these cases. Only four of these 311 victims went to the police station to report and 25 expressed their intention to do so. Some did not even answer the investigators' call. ‘The majority of cases are not reported, but it is a reality that is only uncovered by the proactive action of the police’, stresses the commander.
Real-time voice cloning, a ‘latent’ threat that police are arming themselves against
In this context, illegal uses of deepfake tools (AI-based tools that take images or recordings of a person and transform them into fake video or audio) are growing at an alarming rate. The most dangerous of these is real-time voice cloning in order, among other things, to impersonate a family member and demand a ransom from the victim. Although no complaints have yet been reported in Malaga, the police are armed. ‘Right now it is a latent threat. There have already been attacks on celebrities; the first one, in 2020. A Hong Kong company was robbed of 20 million. But you need a very powerful computer and a high level of specialisation. They are very well orchestrated attacks that cost money,’ reveals Inspector Román. An ideal breeding ground for scams like the fake son in distress scam. ‘Instead of sending a message via Whatsapp, with two minutes of audio they already make a reasonable voice model. That's going to happen,’ he predicts.
Police tips on how to avoid being swindled
But what is the general commandment to avoid falling into the clutches of fraudsters? The head of Cybercrime gives the key: ‘Never tell secrets to others. Nor should you ‘undress in front of anyone’. ‘When it comes to property, always check and don't let yourself be carried away by impulses,’ he advises. And make sure, before following the instructions of the bad guys, that it is the bank that has warned that a bank account has been hacked, he says.
It is not the longest-lived users who are most likely to fall for scams. The researcher breaks the myth and testifies that the victims tend to be middle-aged, even young people who are ‘more familiar’ with technology. There are, however, those who end up succumbing to the charms of fake Romeo, such as an 86-year-old woman who reported a love scam after paying 20,000 euros to her supposed beau.
Police also uncovered a scam in which a man lost 300,000 euros. ‘It's a psychological phenomenon in which emotions are at work; an investment in which, if you pamper the product, you get more out of it,’ describes the police chief, convinced that, in the end, cybercrime is “a matter of probabilities”.
Cybercrime, ‘a criminal's paradise’
From the theft of information to the kidnapping of data for ransom, anything goes if you want to make a profit. Inspector Román is convinced that ‘there is no such thing as a perfect crime’, but he recognises how difficult it is to crack down on cybercriminals, who cross borders and evolve at great speed. It is, he says, a ‘very segmented’ crime. ‘The people who get paid are not the same people who do the attack. They don't even know each other. We are in a virtual world,’ explains the group leader. The most common thing, according to him, is to have a ‘network of mule drivers’. ‘We are talking about people who move money in the same country, but the attack may come from Nigeria or Russia. Cybercrime is a criminal's paradise,’ he stresses.
Source: Málaga Hoy
