For several days now, the 72-year-old retired mathematician from the Isthmus of Corinth Charalambos Sassalos he is relieved. She no longer has to travel a kilometer every month to queue up at the counter. bank, receive his pension in cash, pay off part of the loan he used to cover online through his wife’s account, and feel that he is “treated as a fraud” as if he were “a member of some kind of cartel.” His bank account is now “unfrozen”, he can use his cards again. In the summer of 2021, he became a victim of an Internet fraud, he was suspected of money laundering. His torment lasted for more than a year.

Fake email

Mr Sassalos says he’s quite savvy on the internet and often uses his mobile phone for transactions. On August 11, 2021, he received an email purporting to be from his bank saying that his credit card was temporarily blocked, security measures had been improved and he needed to verify his details. Follow the instructions exactly. “It had the bank logo on it, it looked authentic,” he says of the post. “I didn’t notice in the email address that it ended up looking like it was sent from Chile.”

He was transferred to a clone site of his bank and entered his passwords, thinking he was in a secure environment. Until a few days later he tried to check if his pension had been transferred and found that his account was blocked. What happened? On August 26, 2021, a €10,000 money transfer was sent Bank account a Rhodesian whom he did not know. On that day, Roditis became the victim of an electronic scam by responding to a misleading email that was supposed to come from his bank. However, immediately realizing what had happened, he disputed the transaction and blocked the money sent to Mr. Sassalos’ account. The total amount that unknown perpetrators tried to extort from the victim of Rhodes, transferring her to three different accounts, reached 14,000 euros.

intermediate “station”

“It had the bank logo on it. I didn’t notice in the email address that at the end it looked like it was sent from Chile,” Haralambos Sassalos, 72, tells K.

Prior to the controversial transfer, the retired mathematician says he didn’t have any significant amounts in deposits. As it turned out, the malefactors who deceived him tried to use his account as an intermediate station for transferring the loot. They could then send money from there to another account or make online purchases, but they didn’t have time to complete the transaction.

Mr. Sassalos points out that he also acted immediately. In his responsible statement, he asked for the money to be returned to the Rhodesian – a process that was completed in a few days – and he thought that this would end the case without further problems. However, the Money Laundering Authority froze his account as he was suspected of possible complicity in money laundering.

In his recent publication on this particular case, “K” reported that on September 26, 2022, on the orders of the Misdemeanors Prosecutor of Rhodes, the subpoenas of both Mr. Sassalos and an Athenian in a similar position were dismissed. Evidence of their guilt was never found, and no criminal case was initiated against them, but their adventure lasted more than a year. The Athenian woman has a disability rate of 81% and is credited with a social security benefit to her blocked account to pay for the costs of treatment and medical care.

Laundry intermediaries

As shown by the last two years after the investigations of the Greek police and the investigation of cases of electronic fraud, some schemes hire intermediaries for a fee and use their bank accounts to launder money. However, often schemes are used for the same purpose by counting unsuspecting citizens whom they have already deceived.

“It was a heartbreaking, tedious process,” Mr. Sassalos says in a telephone conversation with K. “I used to go to the bank like I was being punished. I never expected a scammer to use my accounts in this way.”