MADRID, June 27 (Xinhua) -- The Spanish National Police announced on Tuesday that they had made 57 arrests and broken up an alleged network that had been committing fraud and trafficking top of the line mobile phones.
The arrests of people from 13 different nationalities came as the result of a joint operation with the Romanian police against an organized crime network believed to have been run by a Romanian family.
The network had people working for telecommunication companies who fraudulently obtained customers' bank account and credit card details and used the data to buy high-end mobile phones.
According to the police, the phones were then delivered to false addresses by delivery men who were paid 50 euros per phone. The phones were then distributed to call centers and small businesses and sold at much lower prices than at usual high-street outlets.
The police calculated that the network carried out around 2,000 separate frauds valued at over three million euros (3.38 million U.S dollars)
Three of the suspected ringleaders were arrested in Romania and the others were arrested in Madrid, Valencia, and other regions of Spain. Meanwhile, 17 police searches uncovered 30,000 euros in cash, 130 smartphones, 21 tablets, three televisions, seven laptops and 587 SIM cards, along with 25 notebooks containing victims' personal financial information.(1 euro = 1.13 U.S. dollars)
