Three criminal groups used the Telegram social network to sell branded products from Asia that were counterfeit . To do this, they used camouflaged links that allowed them to bypass the anti-counterfeit controls established by the platforms and by the brands.
This operation began at the end of 2020 and as reported by the Police this Thursday, there have been six people in Barcelona, Cáceres, Madrid, Murcia, Valencia and Ferrol , while another ten people have been declared under investigation.
This new fraudulent modality requires that the manufacturers of counterfeit products and those who run the entire network need to recruit people in each country to be able to advertise their products . In this way, a ‘network of affiliates’ is being generated who receive commissions for each transaction, which encourages more operations to be carried out.
new tools
In these channels, daily and systematically, a multitude of camouflaged links were advertised that allowed the purchase of counterfeit textile products through an online sales platform, simulating the purchase of unbranded products. Some of these channels had more than 45,000 users, which exponentially increased the sales volume of each item offered.
To further increase sales volume they designed ‘ bots ‘ or computer programs that perform the tasks they are programmed to do. This procedure allowed them to automate publications and carry out other actions such as detecting and acting against users who did not follow the established security measures.