Woman arrested in mobile phone scam

The Guardia Civil have arrested a 37-year-old woman, resident of Callosa D’en Sarria and a 34-year-old accomplice for a mobile phone fraud.

The pair allegedly purchased mobile phones in Murcia, Alicante, Toledo and Madrid using identities of other people, registering the telephone and Internet lines in their victims’ names. The Guardia Civil were alerted to the same when one of the victims reported receiving high phone bills on lines that they had not contracted themselves.

The criminals had used the victims’ identity to complete contracts with the telecommunications companies. The Guardia focused their investigation on how the accused managed to gain the identity of the victims without their consent, which led them to a neighbour of the victim who sold cosmetics from home and had asked for a copy of their ID in order to register the victim as a customer. Further research discovered that the same means had been used on multiple occasions involving other residents in the same town of Abanilla in Murcia, as well as others in Alicante, Toledo and Madrid.