They had also managed to manipulate the voice on the customer’s phone just to make an impression consent to the supply contract of electricity to do so they used artificial intelligence. A trick by crime professionals that brought in nine million euros in profit in the first three months of 2023. Managers and agents of the Cyber Security Operations Center in Rome are convinced of this. Milanan offshoot of the Postal Police which discovered «an impressive criminal system”, reports a statement from the police headquarters. In the opinion of the prosecution, there would be two Paduan companies supplying electricity and gas at the center of the investigation, the «Facile energy», sponsor of Calcio Padova, and Sei srl Italian energy system.
A thousand scammed
In the operation «Energy switch», some call centers are also involved between Veneto, Campania, Sicily, Albania which the prosecution considers specialized «in fraudulent activations of contracts for the supply of energy and extortion and self-laundering of illicit proceeds”. The investigation is coordinated by the prosecutor of the Milan prosecutor’s office, Milda Milli who has registered a thirty people in the register of suspects, including six from Veneto, including the husband and wife couple who own the two Padua companies. The charges against them speak variously of criminal association, fraud, attempted extortion and extortion, impersonation and self-laundering. Over a thousand people were defrauded, including many from Veneto. «They took it especially with the most vulnerable, often disoriented when faced with the false promises of those who called them” an investigator lets slip. They are “characters with few scruples” as the Milan Police Headquarters say and “they went so far as to threaten an elderly woman alone at home to turn off her electricity after a long stay in hospital.”
The mechanisms used to cheat
The investigation she left for Milan thanks to a priestvictim of the continuous requests coming from satellite call centers, connected with the Padua companies. In reality, investigators say, the victim already had signed a conciliation with the companies in order to free themselves from the electricity supply contract. But this was not enough and the priest remained in the sights of the call center workers until he reported the abuses suffered to the Milan Postal Police. SInvestigations began and this is how it emergedin the opinion of the investigators, a gigantic scam against a thousand citizens. The modus operandi started from the collection of data snatched from the phone from unaware call center interlocutors. A first method was to activate the user by signing the contract with a false signature. The music changed, however, when the activation procedure took place through a vowel. In this case, investigators say, the recording was manipulated to perfection and so the various “yes” to the requests of the call center operator emerged, collected by the unaware customer, for the conclusion of the contract.
Bills and threats
The situation worsened when the victim suddenly felt the reminders for payment of unpaid bills from the supplier. It also reached, the investigators say, even some extortion with threats such as weakening the electricity supply or disconnect the meter. The Postal Police yesterday carried out searches in 35 sites «of which 32 in Italy and 3 in Albania» reports the Police note. The “visit” of the agents concerned the two operational offices of the Padua companies, 12 call centers and 21 administrators, accountants, consultants and employees of the companies involved in the investigation.
