She was sentenced to five years in prison for impersonating a person to buy a computer

In recent hours, the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation sentenced a woman to five years in prison for the crimes of material falsehood in a public document aggravated by the use and attempt of fraud.

These events occurred between March 7 and 11, 2011, in the municipality of Itagüí (Antioquia), when Doris Luque Mesa carried out several procedures in a renowned chain store in order to obtain a credit. Later, the defendant intended to acquire a laptop, valued at 1,100,000 pesos.

The work of the judicial police made it possible to establish that Luque Mesa used a false citizenship card in the name of Lindiela Ortiz Mejía to fill out the illegal credit.

For this reason, a judge also imposed a fine of 33.33 minimum monthly legal wages in force at the time of the incident and ordered his arrest in order to serve his sentence in the penitentiary determined by the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (INPEC).

According to a study by TransUnion, an economic and financial information solutions company, this type of theft grew by 149% in the last year; however, in Colombia alone, the increase was 243%.

In addition, according to the latest PWC's Global Economic Crime and Fraud survey, 47% of companies have experienced fraud and embezzled nearly $42 billion in the last 24 months.

The constant call of the authorities is that people take precautions when sharing or disclosing personal data, such as addresses, phone numbers, location, passwords or place of work, through social media. Making them available online without restrictions will be dangerous and could lead to digital identity theft.

“Anyone can be a victim of this crime, which is why to avoid falling into this situation, personal information uploaded to social networks must be carefully protected, accounts monitored and act quickly on any indication of misuse of their identity,” said Marito Pino, CEO of Xharla, a agency that recently launched the #PiensaAntesDePublicar campaign.

It may interest you: Ten tips to avoid impersonating your identity through social networks

Cybersecurity researchers have warned about the growing number of cases of fraud in which criminals contact their victims through WhatsApp, posing as relatives in distress. In particular, it has been seen that scammers pretend to be people's children or nephews to request urgent money from them.

This modus operandi is reminiscent of virtual kidnappings, in which the criminal calls a person at night and tells him that he has a family member kidnapped. Then the alleged relative (who is another criminal) is put on the line on the phone, screaming and crying to make him believe that this is a real kidnapping. Faced with the confusion generated, the person falls into the trap and ends up delivering the loot where indicated.

However, in this case there is not a call but a message through the messaging service and, instead of using the kidnapped person's mobile phone, a problematic situation is invented that the alleged son of the victim must resolve urgently and requires a disbursement of money. The common ground in this type of deception is the urgency and appeal to the victim's affective ties with the claim or necessity of an alleged family member.

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