Bineros: who are they and how do thieves operate the number of bank cards in Mexico?
A "binero" is that person who is swindling online buying groups. They have communities in social networks and most are minors.
The advance of technology and the increasingly widespread use of online commerce also brings with it a negative part: digital fraud and the detection of vulnerabilities in the system. Nowadays, in the digital world, the so-called "bineros" are on the lookout for your money, putting the danger not only of the buyers but also of the payment platforms themselves.
A "binero" is that person who is swindling online buying groups. They have communities in social networks and most are minors. In Mexico, they steal the digits of thousands of US credit cards to make purchases online.
One of the main problems faced by scammers is having to provide a shipping address for their e-commerce operations; however, they usually resort to triangulations, obtaining an address in the United States, or purchasing services and transfers to Mexico.
To fully understand this way of cheating, it is necessary to be clear about what a BIN (a term derived from binary code) is. All cards have at least 16 digits in front, of which the first 6 correspond to the issuing bank and the type of card. The remaining numbers can be generated through special programs that can be obtained without much problem in the network, without the need to know to program, the numbers obtained allow you to obtain the secret number, expiration date with which it is possible to make purchases online.
In the world "binero" you can pay telephone bills, hire Netflix, Spotify, make purchases in GooglePlay, make trips in Uber, order food through applications, acquire mobile phones, motorcycles, screens, etc. It depends on the ability of the 'binero', as there are sites like Amazon that are hard to circumvent. The authorities and the banks have already detected this type of fraud, which is also known as "carding", but they have not been able to fight it. Even, it has increased and has begun to normalize among Mexican youth, to such a degree that bins (numbers of a bank card) are commercialized in social networks.
"Carding" is a fraudulent practice of online fraud consisting of illegal access to the number and money of a credit card. This bad practice is close to five years of life, and each time it experiences greater growth and bases its activity on the use of algorithms with which the numbers on the cards are generated.
The "bineros" began operating in Mexico at least since 2015, the year in which complaints about purchases or payments for unrecognized services increased through Internet operations. These activities have an impact of 12,500 million pesos per year (about 675 million dollars) in Mexico. Money that banks, companies, and users end up paying. But never the "bineros".
Mario Di Costanzo, president of the National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Users of Financial Services (Condusef), revealed that cyber thieves are not persecuted in the absence of a legal framework and because their activity is very difficult to track.
"Unlike other countries, in Mexico we do not have the cyber fraud as criminalized in the Federal Criminal Code; however, it can be defined as fraud made through the use of a computer or the Internet. What also happens is that it is much more complicated to fight. The identification of those responsible, "said the president of the Condusef in an interview with Univisión.
Unlike Mexico, in Spain this crime is persecuted, the National Police makes operative counters arrest "bineros" and take them to trial, where they face sentences of 12 years of effective prison. Although for many "bineros" using foreign banking data is a fact without malice, for the Mexican authorities the problem is serious and considers it part of organized crime.
"The problem is not a group of millennials that hires Netflix for free or that buys a hearing aid, I think they are already networks, professional criminal groups. It is an imported crime. These are crimes that did not exist in Mexico. Some of these groups we have identified with bands of Central Americans, with the Russian mafia (...) and increasingly operate with greater subtlety, "said Di Costanzo.
What measures can you take to confront the "bineros"?
The most effective is to make sure that the first numbers do not reach the wrong person.
Avoid losing sight of your card.
Be alert when using it physically.
Verify phone numbers, email, and Internet addresses of any communication allusive to a bank.
Check the confidence indicators (certifications of any website where you make an online purchase).
