The Civil Guard closes a TikTok channel dedicated to moving money obtained through scams and other cybercrimes

The Civil Guard has closed a TikTok channel that sought to recruit victims as "economic mules." Their objective was for them to create bank accounts, for which they supposedly offered up to 100 euros, in order to receive, transfer and hide money from scams and other cybercrimes. Two people have been arrested, including the profile administrator, and another investigated, in Granada and Almería.

This investigation, called "Black-Account", has made it possible to recover 38,000 euros and put an end to this channel used on this social network. There are at least 162 victims affected. The beginning of this operation was thanks to the complaint in Granada a year ago by one of the victims. Since then, civil guards from the EDITE Technological Investigation Team have analyzed a large amount of financial and technological information to follow the path of the funds and uncover this system for capturing bank accounts.

The hook: a video, a phone number and a promise

The method used is simple. People dedicated to criminal activities through the Internet offer money in exchange for others opening bank accounts in their name and giving up control, subsequently providing passwords and verification codes to operate with them. Although these continue to appear in the name of their owners, other people use them to receive, transfer and move money from scams and other cybercrimes, with the aim of making it difficult to track and identify those truly responsible. A mobile phone and the reach of social networks is enough to recruit new collaborators.

What makes this system especially dangerous is not a single account, but its ability to multiply. A single video reaches thousands of users in a very short time and attracts numerous people willing to open more than one account in exchange for the financial compensation offered. Each new account becomes a gateway for victims' money, which is subsequently transferred between different accounts, financial platforms and even cryptocurrency services in order to make it difficult to trace.

An account for 100 euros

In this case, one of the detainees had created a profile on TikTok where he uploaded videos offering 100 euros in exchange for the creation of bank accounts. Under the promise of obtaining easy and risk-free money, he provided a contact telephone number in the comments of his videos for those interested.

The captured person opened the account in his name, passed the video verification with his face and his national identity document (DNI), and then delivered the security codes that he received by SMS. With this information, effective control of the account passed into the hands of the scammer. The owner continued to be the one captured, but the person who moved the money was not.