The Judiciary Police (PJ) has dismantled a computer and communications structure responsible for scams based on the 'Hello mom, hello dad' phenomenon. A foreign man, 38 years old, was arrested on Monday. The crimes in question are qualified fraud, criminal association, and money laundering.

In a statement to which Notícias ao Minuto had access, the PJ highlights that the proceedings were carried out by the Leiria Criminal Investigation Department, which identified "coincidences" and joined seven more investigations, noting the massive use of unrepeatable mobile phone numbers, from national operators, to carry out this type of illicit activity, which triggered alerts and forced the use of special means to obtain evidence.

The PJ seized 49 modems, which had 32 SIM cards per device, meaning that 1,568 cards were operating simultaneously. This allowed for the creation of thousands of accounts, mainly on WhatsApp, "as well as the sending/receiving of thousands of messages per day, through the 'hello dad, hello mom' fraud and other scam phenomena in the digital environment".

The massive use of thousands of cards was a recurring practice.

The detainee had set up a computer and communications structure in his home. "With this investigation and police operation, the consummation of thousands of computer scams in Portugal and abroad is interrupted," the statement reads.

The detainee's wife and daughter were named defendants for co-authorship of the same crime.

The interaction with other people, in a network, was also identified, and evidence was collected from suspects residing in a country in Central Europe.

The director of the PJ's Criminal Investigation Department in Leiria, Avelino Lima, said this Tuesday in a press conference that the case is of "high complexity". Avelino Lima explained that cooperation with other countries is not limited to the Europol area and refused to disclose the nationality of the detainee.

He also added that citizens should still be very attentive and follow all the advice of the authorities, which has already "been widely disseminated". "The main sign that people need to be aware of is that they don't have to pay anything if they don't have an invoice," he said.

[News updated at 11:45 am]

Read also: Three hundred investigations at the PJ in Leiria in 2023 for 'digital' scams (Portuguese version)