Over the weekend the Judiciary Police (PJ) carried out a police operation, consisting of five non-home searches, targeting a set of stores in a commercial area in the centre of Lisbon, and two house searches on the south bank, which resulted in the dismantling of a criminal structure, linked to the “Olá Pai / Olá Mãe” (Hello Father/Hello Mother) scam that rampaged through WhatsApp.
According to a statement from the PJ sent to the newsrooms, the present investigation by the PJ’s Leiria Criminal Investigation Department began in August 2023, and it was noticed, from the diligences carried out, that the SIM numbers used were not repeated and that they used, preferably, numbers assigned to a single national operator.
“In this operation ‘Cards without a Trace’, 1,300 SIM cards (gift) have now been seized, with five individuals and three legal persons becoming defendants.”
PJ further adds that, in May of this year, the investigation made it possible to identify and locate the “point of dissemination of the messages,” and the searches and seizures carried out at the time justified the arrest and detention of a suspect.
The detainee, according to the Judiciary Police, operated with seven modem’s, VOIP GATEWAY, each with 32 ports, operating 224 SIM cards simultaneously. Between May and November 2023, the seven modems were capable of operating around 43,000 SIM cards.
“To date, about 8,500 SIM cards were also seized, 1,500 already used and 7,000 unused, which reveals the magnitude of the criminal scheme and the potential for spreading messages, which victimized hundreds of citizens across the country,” said a PJ spokesperson.
The investigation identified all those who collaborated in the process of facilitating the approximately 50,000 SIM cards, offered by an operator at music festivals and museums, which allowed them to be used free of charge for 15 days and, in this way, open WhatsApp accounts and send thousands of messages.”
The PJ says that the network, which comprises several foreign citizens, collected these gift cards in different areas of Greater Lisbon, then sold them for use by the criminal structure, now dismantled.
With the evidence collected and the defendant in detention, the PJ has confirmed that their investigations are entering the final phase.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
