Eleven people are in custody on charges of fraud, falsifying documents, money laundering and illicit association.
The Interior Ministry said in a press release on Tuesday that most of the network’s victims were in the U.S., Australia, Mexico and EU countries. A bank employee was a key member of the network in helping to dupe the victims into believing the claims made in the letters were true.
He was employed as chief teller and head of the bank’s foreign currency department, receiving the victims in his office and convincing them that the funds they had been promised had been deposited in the Bank of Spain.
The network had been under investigation since September of 2009 and is understood to have sent out thousands of letters from Spain, mainly from Madrid and its surrounding area, every day.
The amounts defrauded from each person ranged from 50,000 € up to as much as 2 million €.
114 bank accounts held in the suspects’ names have been blocked as part of the operation. Police also seized 7 top range vehicles, boxes containing forged US dollar notes, in addition to letters, labels and envelopes ready to be sent off to their next potential victims.
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