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Scammers create fake health insurance bills online and cash out more than R$4 million
The Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro arrested, on Friday (12), embezzlers who generated false health insurance vouchers on the Internet.
The police took the suspects from their bed, on Friday morning (12), in São Paulo, but until their arrest, the couple appointed as the head of the scheme seemed to live without rest.
This is what dozens of records of travels around the world made by Marcos José Valentim de Almeida and Barbara Rodríguez de Oliveira show. Always with extravagance and expensive habits. Rome, Cancun, Ibiza. Football game in Barcelona, ride a Ferrari in the streets of Paris. Last week they were in Dubai. They squandered money that did not belong to them.
The police discovered that the gang had set up and registered a company with the same name as a large insurance company that already existed. I served this company through messaging apps and the internet as if it were the real thing. When a customer needed to produce a duplicate of an invoice to pay for a health plan or life insurance, for example, he got a document very similar to the original, but with data that made the money go into the gang’s account. In just one year, it was R$4 million.
The scammers’ company even has real registration with the Sao Paulo Board of Trade, Investigators say victims reported the same oddity: When they Googled the insurance company, for a duplicate coupon, the first name that came up was that of the gang’s company.
For the rep, this is an indication that the scammers paid Google to highlight their ad, which is called boost.
They have invested a lot of money to be able to strengthen this link. From there, they were able to convince customers to pick up a duplicate ticket and have it delivered to them,” explains delegate Angelo Lages.
- Scammers mock public body pages on the Internet and pay Google to promote sites
The police also arrested a third person in Sao Paulo. Daniel dos Santos appears as the owner of another company in the gang who impersonated the insurance company to receive payments. The police have already identified victims in 5 states of Brazil.
One man, who did not wish to be identified, is a businessman and computer student, who didn’t realize his health insurance bill was fraudulent.
“The tendency is for you to click on the first links, you know. If, by chance, the fake site gets dropped in searches, it’s definitely going to have less reach and it’s definitely going to be less credible, you know. And then the ticket was paid, it was almost 3,000 Brazilian reals,” says the victim.
Investigators now want to know how the fraudsters gained access to the insurance company’s customer databaseBecause they know exactly what the plan is and how much they’ve been billed per month.
In addition to embezzlement, prisoners will respond to criminal organization and money laundering, which carry much greater penalties.
For this gang, it’s the end of a life of ostentation funded by fraud. But in order not to fall victim to such scams, police say anyone can take at least one precaution.
“It is imperative that you look at the CNPJ, and make sure that the payment is going to the company that hired you,” advises the rep.
Marcos José Valentim de Almeida and Barbara Rodríguez de Oliveira told the police that they would only speak to the courts. Danielle dos Santos said she gave her name to open the business because she believed it was a legal business.
The São Paulo Trade Council reports that the company has suspended its activities since January. The Council is a registration body, not a supervisory body.
Google has stated that it prohibits ads that attempt to confuse users and about products that incite dishonest behavior. Which, in the case of financial services, would require the company to check documents before announcing. That’s when it identifies a rule violation, it immediately stops the ad and bans the advertiser’s account.
