New method of Fraud and deception | Man Deceives phone and car dealers, collecting 700,000 USD in Al-Raqqah

Over the past months, Al-Raqqah has witnessed excessive luxury, an extravagance of cars and buildings, and money of immense wealth among a number of people who have professed fraud, money laundering and drug trafficking.

Although the Autonomous Administration issued a decision to criminalise practitioners of “money laundering” and tighten the security grip on those negative phenomenons, a new method of fraud and deception emerged as a man known by his initials as J. A. lured several venture capitalists claiming to run money and generate profit up to 150 %.

According to Syrian Observatory sources, the man has taken nearly 700,000 USD and fled to an unknown destination, igniting anger among people.

It is worth noting that during ISIS’s control over Al-Raqqah, a man called “Makhraz” deceived people and took nearly one million from merchants and venture capitalists in Al-Raqqah and fled to Europe.

On June 6, SOHR activists reported that the Autonomous Administration of northern and eastern of Syria issued a resolution criminalizing “electronic scamming” after cybercrime escalated in Al-Raqqa and Al-Tabaka city.

The resolution stated that anyone involved in electronic scamming would be pursued and imprisoned, where these crimes affected several Gulf countries and banks with Saudi being the most prominent.

Reliable SOHR sources in Al-Raqqa confirmed that the security forces pursued criminals and those committing cybercrimes, which resulted in promotion of drugs such as “Hashish and crystal meth” due to high amounts of money from electronic scamming.

Security forces launch wide-range arrest campaigns since the resolution was issued in Al-Raqqa and Al-Tabaka cities, in pursuit for people involved in electronic scamming.

According to SOHR activists, a torture crime shocked Hazima area in May, where a person involved in electronic scamming was tortured after an argument with another person over money transferred from Saudi banks, where the brothers of the perpetrator kidnapped a civilian, tortured him and shot film him being tortured.

The crime and criminals were revealed and the Organized Crime Department arrested them.

Electronic scamming is a series of cybercrimes committed by several people in Al-Raqqa, Al-Tabaka, outside in Turkey and in Saudi Arabia.

This type of crimes spread widely in Al-Raqqa and Al-Tabaka two years ago in coordination with owners of cellphone and communication stores in Al-Wadi St. to obtain Saudi phone numbers.

The criminal would present himself as a marketer on social media to sell cars, house maids, group sex parties, party tickets and drugs, and would send fake links for transferring money.

A group of “hackers” is able to break into bank accounts of the victims, withdraw their money and transfer it to other accounts mostly in Turkey, especially in Al-Ma’kabin.