Young fraudsters swindle 100,000 bank customers

KOCAELİ – Demirören News Agency

A crime ring of eight adolescents and young adults in the Marmara province of Kocaeli have been charged with seizing the bank details of 100,000 people by “phishing” method.

The suspects, aged between 18 and 20, were taken by anti-cybercrime police officers to the courthouse in the district of Gebze on Oct. 11, while a huge amount of money, two luxury cars, bank cards, phones, hard drives, laptops, computers and a pistol found in their houses were confiscated.

The police also found their photos showing them posing with money bundles and shared them on social media.

The suspects have been accused of copying websites of Turkish banks and contacting customers to get their passwords. They channeled money worth some 2 million liras ($340,490) from bank customers to their own accounts by this method called phishing, according to the police.

In the meantime, a ringleader posing as a prophet to collect money from locals in Kocaeli was also handed to the court yesterday.

The suspect, known by the nickname Rafet Efendi, and the other gang members including his sons were accused of demanding from religious people real estate properties, automobiles and jewelry with either a promise of an after-life in heaven or a threat of sending to hell.