Portugal: Seven Arrested in Scam Network Targeting Over 20 Sellers on OLX and Marketplace

A Portuguese police operation has dismantled a network suspected of defrauding more than 20 victims out of roughly €80,000 through fake transactions on OLX and Facebook Marketplace.

The operation's code name, ScamWay, sums up the case pretty well. For months, Braga's judicial police tracked a network suspected of repeatedly posing as interested buyers on OLX and Facebook Marketplace — then manipulating their victims into making the transfers themselves, via MB WAY or straight from an ATM.

The network relied on so-called financial mules to collect the money once it was transferred, blurring the trail between the victim and whoever was running the operation. One victim, a man in his late sixties, lost around €16,000 alone in a fake car sale.

The operation involved 51 judicial police officers and six simultaneous raids, spread across Nazaré, Tondela, Évora, Vila Viçosa, and Setúbal. Seven people — four women and three men aged 24 to 48 — were detained and brought before the Viana do Castelo court. An eighth man was separately arrested for illegal weapon possession.

In total, the identified damages exceed €80,000, spread across more than twenty distinct victims — a figure investigators say could still climb as the case continues.