They were reimbursed for meals ordered by a bot… Two men, suspected of having hacked the Uber Eats delivery platform via encrypted messaging Telegram for an amount estimated at more than 2 million euros, were arrested on Tuesday and put on trial. examination on Thursday, we learned on Saturday from a source close to the matter.
The information revealed by The Parisian was confirmed to AFP by the Paris prosecutor's office. One of the suspects was arrested in Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique) and the other in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine), added the source close to the case.
The two men were indicted and placed under judicial supervision on Thursday in Paris, the prosecution said.
Organized gang fraud
The cybercrime section has opened a judicial investigation into organized gang fraud against the American online platform to enable an illicit transaction by an organized gang, the prosecution reported.
Uber Eats filed a complaint on April 22 after finding that since January 2022, meal orders had received undue reimbursements from it.
The investigations were entrusted to the gendarmes of the SR (research section) of Paris who arrested the two men.
137,000 fraudulent accounts
A Telegram channel “Fast Eats” offered to place orders on the platform at -50% of the real value of the meals. The defendants thus recovered 50% of the real value of the order, as well as full reimbursement by the company Uber Eats, the prosecution said.
The authors used new customer accounts for each order, making it possible to obtain reimbursement for the first order. To do this, they used a fraudulent program (bot), allowing them to automate their tasks. 137,000 fraudulent accounts were thus detected, according to the same source.
From tech experts
The American company estimated its damage at 2.4 million euros, for the period between January 1, 2022 and June 26, 2024.
The investigation established that the Telegram channel “Fast Eats” offered two types of services: the sale of meal orders at -50% and the sale of “tech”, training intended to guide a novice step by step in order to enable them to carry out scams himself. These “techs” were sold between 300 and 500 euros.
According to another source close to the case, the young man arrested in Ile-de-France, born in 1996, without a criminal record and without a profession, is suspected of being the owner of the Telegram channel, of having received money and of having made around 200,000 euros of cryptocurrencies disappear. “He disputes the facts with which he is accused,” his lawyer, Me Ian Knafou, told AFP.
