The municipality of Jacagua and the sector The Cocos of Santiago They are, according to the Public Ministry, the operational centers of a cyber-extortion structure that had international overtones and defrauded more than 400 US citizens, whose data has been validated by the United States Homeland Security.
The members of the network designed and published advertisements on dating and intimate encounter portals, offering fictitious sexual services from supposed women.
To maintain the anonymity of the operators in Dominican Republic, The ads included virtual American telephone numbers contracted to providers in American territory, redirecting call traffic and WhatsApp messages to operations centers in Santiago.
When a victim, Known as Panchos in the structure, he contacted the number in the advertisement, the operators, called shooters, proceeded to obtain basic information, photographs and, if possible, payment advances through gift cards.
Once the user’s real telephone number was obtained, the shooter carried out screenshots and transferred them to other members of the network, who ran extensive searches on US public records collection platforms.
In this way, the network obtained names of relatives, workplaces, exact residential addresses and ages of your targets.
With the victim’s profile in hand, a member of the organization communicated with her again, posing as the “person in charge or administrator of the girl.”
the script
Under an aggressive script, he claimed that he had wasted the young woman’s time and money, alleging that she was supposedly rejecting other clients because of him and demanding that she immediately pay a fine or financial compensation. Yeah the victim refused to pay, the network carried out its most violent maneuver: intimidation for coercive purposes.
“The defendants sent text messages, audios and videos claiming to belong to criminal organizations of extreme violence such as the Sinaloa Cartel or the Maras Salvatruchas.”
They did audiovisual montages with hooded people carrying long firearms, to which they superimposed voice notes in English or Spanish with a foreign accent where they explicitly mentioned the name of the victim or their relatives to make the death threat credible.
Desperate with terror, the victims They gave up and made the deposits. The network facilitated digital payment channels such as Zelle, Cash App, Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, Chime or Bitcoin transfers.
To circumvent anti-money laundering controls, receiving accounts in USA They belonged to intermediaries, identified on the network as collectors, who moved the money immediately.
Subsequently, the funds were sent to the Dominican Republic in favor of front men of the network through remitters such as Caribe Express, Western Union, Ria and Vimenca, charging commissions of between 15% and 30% for transnational movement.
He Public Ministry proves the modus operandi through the incorporation of transcripts of telephone interceptions, forensic reports and expert analyzes in the official document, as well as shipment receipts and other evidence of the transactions.
raids
The Public Ministry seized dozens of mobile phones, money counting machines, fake financial stamps and gold bars seized those involved.
The voluminous case file details how a group of young people from a suburban area of Santiago, used information technology, combined with the manipulation of the psychological horrorto create a highly profitable transnational scam structured by local organized crime.
It will be next Monday when the judge of the Permanent Attention court evaluate the 365 pages of the call’s coercive measure request Operation XL 526 for those who are requesting preventive detention and declaration of the complex case due to the multiplicity of defendants.
money laundering
The accusing body also provided bank account movements for tens of millions of Dominican pesos, reports from the Social Security Treasury (TSS) that prove that the defendants did not have legal jobs, and lists of land and real estate acquired for money laundering.
