The scandal was revealed in SVT's Mission: Investigation last spring, which in a notable program with the help of the hacker's material could show in detail how the scammers deceived pensioners out of money.
Last week, I think we reached 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 (million), brother, right now we're screwing Sweden. We're screwing Sweden's mom, one of the suspects was heard saying in a conversation in the program.
The hacker also sent the material to banks and the police, who with the help of it could arrest four people who are now being prosecuted for a large number of cases of gross fraud.
Three teenagers
It concerns three men, 19 to 20 years old, all from the Eskilstuna area, and a 29-year-old woman from Gothenburg. They deny the crime.
In the case, there are eighty victims from all over Sweden who have been deceived out of over 12 million kronor.
It's 73 cases of completed fraud and seven cases of attempted gross fraud. But I also think that there is a large dark figure, says prosecutor Anton Larsson Forsberg at a press conference.
He describes a sophisticated criminal scheme, where the gang used a robot to retrieve thousands of phone numbers of elderly people in any city.
To these numbers, the scammers sent SMS saying that the person had ordered a product and that they should contact the number in the SMS if it wasn't correct.
When they then called, they ended up with the scammers, who in many cases managed to get the person to use their bank ID or card reader, and thus could empty the account.
They had ready-made scripts for what to say to the victims when they called, says the prosecutor, who suspects that many more were involved than those being prosecuted.
At most, one person lost 1.7 million kronor.
You have this as your job, but of course, to sit and listen to these conversations that we got from the hacker, you get sad, he says.
Unique evidence
The material that the police have gained access to through the hacker constitutes a completely unique evidence, since you can follow exactly how it went. However, the identity of the hacker is unknown, and the investigation against him for gross data intrusion has been dropped.
The prosecutor does not think it's a problem that the hacker is unknown, as he believes that the police have been able to verify the material with their own actions.
But you sit and wonder all the time who it can be and why the person does it this way.
If someone calls you and you become unsure, you should end the call. The earlier you interrupt the call, the greater the chance you have to stop the scammer.
Never identify yourself with your bank ID and never give out codes from your card reader or debit card on someone else's request.
If you receive an SMS with information you don't recognize, it's likely a scam. Don't respond.
Source: The Police
