Luis F. Durán Madrid

Madrid

Updated Monday, January 22, 2024-00:15

  • Triple crime The messages that fell in love with those murdered in Morata: "I was amazed by the incredible beauty with which God created you"

  • Events The brothers murdered in Morata were attacked with hammer blows by a lender who is being investigated for the triple crime

The state of the bodies of the three brothers

found dead last Thursday in their home in Morata de Tajuña (Madrid)

is making the Civil Guard's investigations difficult.

The autopsies that began last Friday have not been completed and will continue today, Monday at the Institute of Legal Medicine of Valdebebas.

The lifeless bodies of Pepe, 79, Ángeles, 74, and Amelia, 71, were found partially burned, stacked and with traces of blood last Thursday morning, when no one had known anything about them for about a month. they.

The main police hypothesis is that the triple crime is related to lenders of dubious reputation from whom they asked for money to send to two alleged American soldiers, Edward and Michael, whom they met seven years ago and with whom they had a long-distance love relationship. .

In the town they knew that both Amelia and Ángeles sent thousands of euros to these two people until they ended up in ruin after selling an apartment and everything they had of value.

This led them to borrow money from their loved ones, their neighbors and anyone who wanted to help them, so that they could

continue to meet the financial demands of their virtual boyfriends, who promised to share with them an inheritance of seven million euros.

In reality, neither of the two brothers were who they said they were and their photos corresponded to two other people who had nothing to do with what they told the two sisters.

A common procedure in this type of deception, according to the president of the

National Association Against Scam with Emotional Manipulation

(ANCEME), Blanca Frías, an entity created last December and which already manages 80 cases of victims.

"Scammers gain their trust by making them believe that they are in a romantic relationship and then start asking them for money with any excuse," says Frías, who indicates that it

is common for victims to ask for loans to meet what their lovers ask of them

.

Although there is no typical profile of people who can be victims of a love scam, there are characteristics that make them more vulnerable, such as age or emotional problems.

Scammers know this well, Frías assures Efe, and that is why they look for profiles of

lonely people, widows, divorced people or people who suffer from illnesses such as depression to play with their emotional naivety.

Both Amelia and Ángeles were single, retired, one worked as an antique dealer and the other as a teacher, and they lived together with Pepe, who needed care due to his disability.

Fraudsters also

prey on older people, because they are less aware of the risks of the Internet

and, in addition, have more money saved.

This example is useful: Among the nearly 80 associates of ANCEME, which was founded last December, there is an 88-year-old woman who was defrauded of 500,000 euros in just six months.

Many of the love scammers, adds the president of the association, twist psychology to hook their victims until the moment of truth arrives: financial transfers.

"It is the same as the coercive process used by sects

," says Frías, who, like the rest of the association's management team, was also a victim of one of these scams.

Once they have identified their potential targets, the method used by these scammers begins with the

bombardment of cajoling messages

like those that Ángeles received on her Facebook account.

"

I was amazed by the incredible beauty with which God created you

. I would like to have you as a friend. I really want to know more about this beautiful angel," a man who calls himself Michael Sanford and who looks a photo of former Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks.

Romanticism little by little is interspersed with confidences about personal and economic problems.

And that's where the requests for money begin.

Although Frías estimates that they do not usually exceed 70,000 euros, friends of the family claim that the sisters

sent the two men around 400,000

after selling part of their assets and an apartment in the Ciudad Lineal district of Madrid.

Common hooks

One of the usual hooks, the president of ANCEME emphasizes, is usually an inheritance like the one that Edward, who showed up with a photograph of former NATO commander Wesley Clark, supposedly promised Amelia.

He told her that a colleague of his from the army had died and he was going to be the beneficiary of his millionaire estate, which he would share with her, but first he needed to lend him money to cover the inheritance expenses and unlock the inheritance.

Once the deception is uncovered, "feelings of guilt", symptoms of "severe post-traumatic stress" and even suicide attempts occur, says Frías.

From ANCEME

they regret the lack of judicial and legislative action in the face of the increase in love deceptions

, which they ask to be specifically classified in the Penal Code so that they are punished with more severe penalties than those of a simple scam.

But in the meantime, they recommend taking precautions to prevent falling into the web of criminals, many of them belonging to mafias based in Nigeria and Ghana and known as the "Yahoo Boys."

"

There is a black market that sells fake profiles and deceives from Áffica call centers that take a commission for the scam they get

. There are other countries that have been investigating all this, but here in Spain what happened in Morata had to happen to realize what is happening and put the spotlight on the scammers.

"We advise looking into the person's name, because there are many identical profiles, even with the same photo, and

not trusting those created recently,

with little activity or with all their photos uploaded on the same day," proposes Frías.