The Civil Police of Minas Gerais launched an operation this Tuesday (30) to dismantle a criminal organization specializing in cybercrime known as the auction scam. The police of Paraná and São Paulo participated in the action.
Two arrest warrants, against a 27-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman, and three other judicial search and seizure orders were served in the cities of Curitiba and São José dos Pinhais, both in Paraná.
According to the investigations, the group under investigation operated in several cities, including Frutal and Uberlândia, in the interior of Minas, and in Curitiba and Rolândia, in Paraná. The criminal organization would have moved more than R$1 million in a single month.
In addition to the arrests, cell phones were also seized, which will be analyzed by the police.
How the scam works
The fake auction scam consists of creating pages on the internet that pretend to be legitimate. In the case investigated, the suspects created an auction website with an address similar to the real one.
Thus, when searching on the internet, many victims accessed the fake website believing they were accessing the official page.
When auctioning off a supposed vehicle, the victims were directed to a conversation on a messaging app, under the pretext of finalizing the negotiations. At that time, the suspects requested transfers via Pix to third-party accounts.
According to delegate João Carlos Garcia Pietro Júnior, many of the suspects who received the amounts resulting from the scam were aware of the criminal scheme. One of those investigated, according to the police, confessed to having been recruited to receive the amounts.
Source: CNN Brasil

I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.