The National Police of Navarra issued a warning to citizens about a considerable increase in records of fraud attempts, fraudulent actions that occur through the misappropriation of WhatsApp accounts. The origin of this scheme often lies in the fragility of certain smartphone models, which do not have security or operating systems compatible with the latest versions of the application.
It was observed that all complaints filed by users in Navarra and other regions of the country follow an identical pattern of fraudulent use of WhatsApp accounts. Digital criminals assume the identity of the injured person in past conversations to approach relatives, friends or acquaintances, requesting money and exploiting existing bonds of trust.
The most worrying aspect of this scheme is that, in most incidents, the original user preserves access to their messaging application, while the scammer is able to send communications posing as the victim. Both the legitimate person and the fraudster operate simultaneously on the same account without the owner being disconnected. Additionally, the “Linked Devices” section of WhatsApp does not display any unknown session activity.
The individual affected by the scam continues to use the application normally. At the same time, your contacts begin to receive messages sent by this account, with requests to make money transfers, sometimes indicating a bank account number that may belong to an institution outside the country.
Therefore, misleading communications are not visible on the device of the victim whose account was hacked.
However, money requests reach recipients in authentic conversations within the same chat, making fraud even more difficult for contacts to detect.
For those who receive the message, the situation appears completely legitimate, since the communication comes from the usual telephone number, with the recognized contact name and the history of previous conversations.
According to reports from the injured parties, at no time did they share registration codes or PINs, nor did they scan QR codes or perform any type of voluntary linking of their WhatsApp accounts with third parties.
