The Civil Guard has arrested red-handed a 54-year-old man, a resident of Icod de los Vinos, as the alleged perpetrator of at least 15 fraud crimes committed in bank branches located in different municipalities in the north of the island of Tenerife: Tacoronte, La Orotava, Los Realejos, Puerto de the Cross and Icod de los Vinos.
The so-called Yuca Norte operation has been carried out by Civil Guard agents belonging to the Investigation Areas of the Puerto de la Cruz Company and the Judicial Police Territorial Team of the same municipality.
The criminal acts had been taking place since the end of 2020, when the accused allegedly manipulated the ATMs of the various bank branches with the aim of deceiving the previously chosen victims.
After the manipulation, when the victim tried to operate and entered his user’s pin code, the ATM was automatically blocked, at which time the defendant took the opportunity to casually address the victim and induce her to leave that branch and go to another ATM.
After leaving the session of his account open, the defendant took advantage of the victim’s absence to unlock the ATM and withdraw certain amounts of cash from the bank account that reached 1,400 euros.
The profile of the victims was almost always the same, elderly people with difficulties to operate at ATMs.
During the investigation, many steps were taken to identify and locate the accused, having to carry out various discreet surveillance, monitoring, postings, etc., since the accused used important security measures to avoid being identified: he changed his appearance continuously, wearing different style clothing, in order to go unnoticed among the population and not attract anyone’s attention.
In one of these follow-ups, Civil Guard agents arrested the accused in a surprise manner after committing one of the crimes. Subsequently, his home was entered and searched, during which it was possible to recover the amount of 5,750 euros in cash, allegedly from the commission of the crimes, as well as various items of clothing that he used as a security measure to not be identified.
The detainee, along with the proceedings instructed, has been placed at the disposal of the Investigating Court No. 2 of San Cristóbal de La Laguna.
