The Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Postal Police of the Lombardy capital have defeated a gang that was carrying out an ingenious telephone scam on contracts of electricity and gasworking through call center. In fact, from the complaint of a priest from the city of Milan, the investigators discovered the existence of a criminal system, made up of two companies based in Padua and numerous call centers located between Italy and Albaniaspecialized in fraudulent activation of contracts for the supply of energy, extortion and self-laundering of illicit proceeds.
Thanks to the work of the police, a large quantity of electronic and banking data were seized, as well as IT systems used to manage the fraud. The investigations brought to light around a thousand victims, for an economic tour that in the first quarter of 2023 alone had yielded 9 million euros to the gang. But how did the scam work?
From calls to scams with AI
As the Police informs through the Office for the safety of users on the web, the investigation conducted by the Milan Postal Police under the direction of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Milan and the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime of Tirana has made it possible to light on the system. The scams were almost always orchestrated with the same direction, with the suspects harassing the victims with calls to collect all the necessary datain perfect call center style.
The insistent phone calls, often early in the morning or late in the evening, were made on behalf of existing companies, but completely unrelated to the scam. By pretending, for example, to be employees of the Arera (Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment) or of energy companies with which they had stipulated regular contracts for the supply of electricity and gas, the gang managed to gather all the necessary information.
The information, in fact, was collected using pretexts such as, for example, phantom roadworks that had severed the electrical cables or gas pipes and due to which it was necessary to temporarily activate a new contract with an “agreed” operator. And when they were unable to persuade the victim, the suspects used the data acquired during the phone calls to activate the contract anyway by placing false signatures at the bottom of the paper documentation.
When the activation procedure required a voice recordingthe victim’s voice, recorded during the phone call, was artfully manipulated with editors audio or with artificial intelligence apps so that the necessary personal data and the various “yes” could be heard pronounced by the unaware user in response to the questions of the telephone operator in charge of collecting consent.
The threat of debt collectors
The victims, unaware of the scam they had suffered, had high bills and reminders delivered to their homes for not having paid what was due. And that’s when another team of scammers came into play, with phantom “debt collectors” who with aggressive and intimidating calls threatened the defrauded person to obtain payment for the outstanding amount.
In several cases, ascertained during the investigations, these requests turned into real ones extortion, with the usual threatening phrase: “In the meantime, we will weaken your electricity supply and, if you still don’t pay, we will cut off your electricity.” The tones of the phone calls were all the more aggressive the more vulnerable the victims appeared to be.
The result of the investigations
The work began after the complaint presented a few months ago by a Milanese priest who had filed a complaint after being harassed by calls from call centers who, with insistence and aggressive tones, asked him to pay unpaid bills relating to electricity and gas contracts never signed by him. From here the Operations Center for Cyber Security in Milan set up the investigative activity that led to finding the gang.
The investigation led to searches in 35 objectives, of which 32 in Italy and 3 in Albania, in the city of Tirana. In particular, the activities involved the two operational offices of the Padua energy companies (moreover recently sanctioned by the Privacy Guarantor and the Antitrust), 12 call center offices (of which 3 in Albania) and 21 subjects including administrators, accountants, consultants and employees of energy companies and call centers.
