Man from Sagunto arrested over €49,630 scam: luxury watches and other people's cards
The National Police have arrested a man from Sagunto and a woman from Valencia over a €49,630 scam; the victim got the money back. A third suspect's whereabouts are unknown.
In late May 2025, a phone call promising better terms for switching mobile providers was enough to divert €49,630 from a man living in Valladolid. The National Police have now closed the investigation with two arrests, one in Sagunto and one in Valencia, and a third suspect whose whereabouts are unknown. The victim has recovered the full amount.
The caller posed as a salesperson for a telecoms company and used the conversation to obtain the victim's personal and tax details. With them, the perpetrators ordered six bank transfers from his account to other people's accounts and set up three cards that were used for several payments. This method fits what is known as electronic fraud, or phishing: bank details and passwords are requested in order to make transfers or collect payments improperly.
Two of those transfers ended up at jewellers in central Valencia, where two high-end watches were paid for, priced at €13,600 and €14,550, or €28,150 in total, slightly more than half of the money defrauded. A woman collected them, visiting both shops with copies of the victim's documents and saying she was his daughter-in-law.
According to investigators, the woman, who lives in Valencia, did more than move other people's money: besides appearing in the shops, she was the holder of one of the accounts that received funds from the scam, and she is attributed a significant role in the operation. She was also already under investigation for buying two high-end mobile phones at a Valencia shop with money from another fraud, reported in Pontevedra.
The inquiries also pointed to two other men, one living in Sagunto and the other in Valencia, who are considered alleged necessary accomplices. Both received transfers from the victim's account and paid for purchases with cards issued in his name.
The National Police (Policía Nacional) is an armed institute of civil nature that reports to the Ministry of the Interior and, through its specialist units, handles criminal investigation. Here, the first steps were taken by officers in Valladolid, and the file then passed to the Valencia Provincial Police Station, which recently located and arrested the woman in the Valencian capital and the man from Sagunto, both on suspicion of fraud. Both gave statements at police premises and were released, with the obligation to appear before a judge when summoned.
The third man identified, who lives in Valencia, has not been found and a police search order is in force against him over these events. With the case files already sent to the competent judicial authority, the matter is now in the hands of the court. Freezing the transfers and the charges on the account is what allowed the money to go back to its owner.
This kind of fraud involving phone operators is not new in the press of the Valencian Community. In October 2016, according to elperiodic.com, the National Police arrested two people in Castellón over a fraud of more than €18,000 involving mobile number transfers contracted with customers' data.
The police ask people not to give personal identification details or bank account information over the phone to supposed salespeople or operators, however advantageous the offer seems. They warn that these scams can combine social engineering with technical knowledge to obtain sensitive information.
According to El Periódico de Aquí, with additional data from Wikipedia and elperiodic.com.