The wild telemarketing continues to affect Italian users, despite the Public Register of Oppositions. But the discovery made by the Postal Police highlighted that the phenomenon has now reached unimaginable levels. The Energy Switch operation made it possible to identify a “criminal system” specialized in the activation of unsolicited contracts for the supply of electricity and gas. In some cases, the typical methods of aextortion.
Threats to demand undue payments
The investigations began following the complaint presented by a Milanese priest who received numerous phone calls from call center for the payment of overdue bills relating to electricity and gas contracts never signed. The Operations Center for Cyber Security (COSC) in Milan therefore discovered a criminal network, made up of two companies from Padua and numerous call centers with offices in Italy and Albania, specializing in fraudulent activations of contracts for the supply of energy, extortion and self-laundering of illicit proceeds.
During searches at the offices of the two companies (already sanctioned by the Privacy Guarantor and the antitrust authority) and 12 call centers, copies of the contracts subject to the complaint and the lists used to contact users were found. The Postal Police also seized computer systems, remote servers and cloud spaces.
Through telephone calls, the data that users provided were collected because they believed they were speaking to employees of ARERA or companies with which they had stipulated regular contracts. Victims were told that electricity cables or gas pipes had been severed during roadworks, so a new temporary contract had to be drawn up.
If the user refused to sign the contract, the latter was still activated with forged signatures and manipulated voice recordings via audio editor or artificial intelligence app. Victims only discovered the scam when they received payment reminders for overdue bills.
Then they started arriving threatening phone calls by debt collectors. In some cases, the requests were real extortion with phrases like “in the meantime we will reduce your electricity supply and, if you still don’t pay, we will cut off your power“. From the analysis of banking data, the Postal Police discovered that the illicit profits made in the first quarter of 2023 alone amounted to approximately 9 million euros.
