He was born 25 years ago in Ponferrada (León), “but the only link that remains with his land was his grandmother,” police sources explain. She and the two legal claims that she has pending there, one of them from prison, and that explain that she was arrested very early in the morning yesterday morning.
National Police when he was on one of his sprees. It was the notice of another client of the Shoko nightclub, one of the most exclusive in the capital, the fundamental element to get the glove, two and a half years after the operation that gave him his nickname, Lupine, carried out by the Unit of Telematic Crimes of the UCO of the
Civil Guard.
It has been (at least, for now) the latest spree of the known as the greatest cyber-scammer in our country, with more than 2,500 known victims and millions of euros improperly appropriated.
The son of a mercheros marriage, Jordi Arias Fernández had broken all relations with them after he entangled his father in his first ‘suits’.
He used the father’s mobile phone on that occasion and he was involved in a good police mess.Known by the UCO for his coldness, bravado and even posing as a civil guard in some cases, Lupine came to threaten to hire hitmen to those who dared to raise a single euro from their very long list of front men.
Ponferrada, Elche, Madrid …
At half past five in the morning yesterday, at the Shoko nightclub, on Calle de Toledo, 86, there was little left to close. A young man who was there with his friends did not take his eyes off a guy who was familiar to him. He had passed through the booths and didn’t quite know what it reminded him of. Until it fell: I had seen him recently in the rerun of one of the chapters of the program ‘Investigation team’. He hardly thought about it and called the National Police. Agents from the Central Police Station’s Response Task Force (GOR) showed up there and arrested Lupine. He did not resist the agents. On June 18, 2019, when he was shackled by the Armed Institute, he released: Someone of mine must have sold me. In this case, he has sold himself.
The National Police verified that this transcript of the fictional character and French fraudster Arsène Lupine had eight legal claims awaiting him: seven search and arrest warrants and another for imprisonment (by a Ponferrada court). You had accounts pending not only in your hometown and Madrid (two in each), but also in Elche, Guadalajara, Albacete and Cádiz.
12,000 euros in your pocket
The party with Lupine was not exactly a bottle, according to the money that the police found him during yesterday’s search: he had almost 12,000 euros in cash in his pocket, in a package wrapped in plastic wrap. He always paid in cash. Like the many taxis he used on all his trips. And also in the aparthotels and, above all, tourist apartments where he lived and in which he rarely stayed more than a week: “His life is a suitcase and a laptop,” they explain to ABC from the UCO.
Despite coming from an unstructured family and lacking university studies (“he is a born self-taught person,” these informants point out), since before he was 20 years old, he has been forging a fortune at the expense of others. Also one of the most vulnerable. As an old man from Asturias (he came to live in Lugones) who ‘raised’ quite a few thousand euros, all his assets after a lifetime of working.
“I’m going to give the stick of my life”
Arias Fernández’s ‘modus operandi’ was to ‘fold’ web pages for the sale of products, especially electronics. It started with Apple and continued with PS video consoles and everything imaginable, reaching real seasons of scams. For example, in November 2019 he was preparing for his great challenge: “I am going to give the stick of my life this Black Friday. I have proposed to get a million euros“He even commented to a buddy in a telephone message. The arrest of five months earlier thwarted his intentions.
Our Spanish Lupine devastated everything: he swindled from his roommate (he obtained her bank details and spent 6,800 euros from his credit card, which was in the name of her father), for which he was sentenced to two years in prison, to thousands of anonymous people who entered shopping websites (including a civil guard) and who, thanks to their main pal, a computer scientist from Albacete who paid 25,000 euros, redirected those created by the two of them. This was done with their checking accounts.
An App to divert money
“He himself called those buyers by phone and told them that their online card payment system was broken, and thus asked them to install an App that forwarded all the SMS of the bank’s passwords. Thus, he transferred the money in real time to one of his multiple checking accounts, “police sources explain.
In fact, they created more than 30 of these fake internet pages and ‘hired’ at least 45 ‘mules’ or front men: many were young people in vulnerable situations, low-grade criminals or even a lottery (from which they bought all their tenths). one day in exchange for giving his name on one of those accounts); In fact, not long before his arrest in 2019 at the hands of the UCO, the National Police arrested a wedding couple whom they had captured. “You’re going to get everyone but me,” he would boast at the time.
Among his ‘practical jokes’ are the two times he scammed the same man, who when he demanded a receipt, he sent it with the message: “My second scam.” Once again, he sent 5,000 euros to an NGO, with the concept “for the poor” …
A haughty attitude and totally lack of empathy that clashed with his ‘modus vivendi’: he is not known for great luxuries, nor exclusive cars, nor real estate. «He paid for a month’s stay in a tourist apartment and only stayed one week. This is how he convinced the owner to pay him in ‘cash’ ”, they explain.
Such is the scope of the outrages of this subject, that the Civil Guard was forced to open an email box to receive so many complaints. Moreover, a court in Valencia had to refer the matter to the National Court, due to the huge mass of money and scammed that Lupine had added. He was sent to provisional prison in that region, from which he only left to attend the pending trials. But he was already at liberty and did not heed the judicial requirements.
300,000 euros per month
Arias knows the law of supply and demand well. It offered lower quantities of products in ‘impersonated’ stores. He came to copy the logos and the brands themselves, although he tried not to ‘double’ the websites of large distributors; but he did scam users of Wallapop, a portal that collaborated with the Civil Guard in the Lupine III operation. These fraudulent pages were subjected to an intense advertising campaign and SEO positioning in the main search engines and social networks with attractive offers. Thus, he obtained 300,000 euros a month in earnings. If his friend the computer scientist, also arrested, paid 25,000 euros, his ‘mules’ only 50, 100 or 250.
What is striking is also that extraordinary security measures had always been maintained. From the Corredera Baja from San Pablo to La Latina; from Calle de la Princesa, to Majadahonda and Las Rozas … He was moving throughout Madrid to avoid being located by the investigators. And in the end it has gone to fall between drinks and dancing.
www.abc.es
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism