The mafia that trafficked stolen cell phones throughout Europe from Raval

BarcelonaThe story begins in a Lisbon shopping mall, or on the streets of Milan. The next episode takes place in an apartment in Barcelona's Raval district, and the finale is filmed in North Africa or China. The Mossos d'Esquadra has become a hub of mobile resale and these two stories prove it: last week, Catalan police arrested 20 people who were buying stolen cell phones in the Raval district.. They recovered more than a thousand phones. One belonged to the Portuguese man at the shopping center, another to the pedestrian in Milan, but there was also one belonging to a shopper at a supermarket in Gandía, a festival-goer in Torrejón de Ardoz, and a visitor to the April Fair in Seville.

The investigation, as explained by Inspector Lisard Hidalgo, head of the Mossos d'Inspection (DIC) in Barcelona, began with a secret known to the public in the neighborhood. Based in Barcelona's Raval district, this newspaper has occasionally encountered people asking for the location of a specific address because their cell phone had been stolen and the geolocation information indicated it was there. One of these apartments was on Carretes Street, and a few months ago, a nervous man warned that he wasn't allowed into a doorway even though his cell phone was inside. Ultimately, he gave up.

A few days later, a woman's purse was stolen in a restaurant in the city's uptown area. Minutes later, her cell phone signal was received from the same apartment. Last week, a swarm of Mossos d'Esquadra officers entered and tapped every phone there. How did they get here? Every day in Catalonia, 155 cell phones are stolen, and half of the thefts occur in Barcelona. The victims, and even more victims, are those who informed the police that their stolen phone was in the same apartment.

The police operation ended with 20 arrests, four of whom were remanded in custody. They are people with criminal records, who had made receiving stolen goods their modus vivendiThe Mossos d'Esquadra inspector stated at a press conference this Friday that this was the Catalan police's "largest-scale" investigation into this issue. "We want to attack the structures that sustain multiple reoffending," warned Hidalgo, citing the Kanpai plan, which seeks to combat this phenomenon and has already led to the arrest of 400 people since it was launched a few months ago.

The more than 1,000 cell phones owned by this criminal gang were valued at €400,000 on the black market. They bought them from thieves for €200 or €300, but before reselling them, as explained by the ARA (Argentine National Police), they attempted to defraud. They were assisted by other suspects from Sabadell who sold a software malicious (what is known as crime as a service) and sent messages to the victims stating that, to recover the phone or carry out a transaction, they needed to provide their details and password. They then went to the shops on the same street, supermarkets, and butcher shops, where they acted in collusion and took their cut, clearing the cards with more purchases. So far, 25,000 euros have been stolen in the scams.

Once they were back in the apartment, they wrapped the phone in aluminum foil to prevent it from receiving a signal and being geolocated. And it worked. A story proves it: when the Mossos d'Esquadra seized all these phones, they took them to the Les Corts police station. A few hours later, the victim of a robbery came forward saying he had geolocated the device at the station. Of all the recovered phones, 45 have already been returned to their owners. Of the thousand phones found, 170 have been reported stolen. One was left in a taxi, another dropped it while delivering in Cornellà, a third was snatched in El Prat de Llobregat, a fourth was at a nightclub in Sitges and didn't even notice, and a fifth had the same thing happen at a music festival in Montmeló. But there are victims everywhere. From Portugal, Milan, but also from Iceland or California. Thieves usually target tourists, who end up reporting it much less often. In fact, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) will open a website in two weeks so that people who lost their phones or suffered a theft that they didn't report can check if theirs is among those seized.

Some phones, however, are already on the other side of the world. The Mossos d'Esquadra have geolocated stolen phones in Morocco and China. Trips to Africa were made by car, and in Asia, by parcel service. And it depended on the individual phone. They were mainly looking for Apple devices, and the priority was the scam. If the phone ended up being blocked, they would send it to China, where the police suspect they separate the parts and reuse them. On the other hand, if they managed to keep the phone alive, they would take it to Morocco to resell it.