An action day performed in Latvia on 10 October 2025 led to the arrest of five cybercriminals of Latvian nationality and the seizure of infrastructure used to enable crimes against thousands of victims across Europe.
During the operation codenamed ‘SIMCARTEL’, law enforcement arrested two further suspects, took down five servers and seized 1 200 SIM box devices alongside 40 000 active SIM cards. Investigators from Austria, Estonia and Latvia, together with their colleagues at Europol und Eurojust, were able to attribute to the criminal network more than 1 700 individual cyber fraud cases in Austria and 1 500 in Latvia, with a total loss of several million euros. The financial loss in Austria alone amounts to around EUR 4.5 million, as well as EUR 420 000 in Latvia.
Read more…
Source: Europol
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Europol: 34 arrests in Spain during action against the ‘Black Axe’ criminal organisation
January 9, 2026
The Spanish National Police (Policía Nacional), in close cooperation with the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (Bayerisches Landeskriminalamt) and with the support of Europol, has conducted an operation against the international criminal organisation ‘Black Axe’. The action resulted in 34 arrests and significant disruptions to the group’s activities. Black Axe is a highly structured, hierarchical group ...
- UK unveiled new cyber action plan to tackle threats and strengthen public services
January 6, 2026
New measures will be introduced to make online public services more secure and resilient, so people can use them with confidence – whether applying for benefits, paying taxes or accessing healthcare. Backed by over £210 million, the Government Cyber Action Plan published today (Tuesday 6 January) sets out how government will rise to meet the growing ...
- Hackers use ‘Blue Screen of Death’ malware to target victims
January 6, 2026
Russian cybercriminals are trying to deploy backdoors and infostealers on people’s computers through a new ClickFix campaign – but this one comes with a sinister twist. ClickFix attacks are usually centered around pop-ups – the victim gets an error message, and at the same time is offered a fix. That fix, be it to run a ...
- France: Ten people found guilty of cyberbullying Brigitte Macron
January 5, 2026
A Paris court has found ten people guilty of cyberbullying France’s first lady Brigitte Macron. All defendants were handed a variety of sentences, ranging from cyberbullying awareness training to eight-month suspended prison terms. The French court pointed to “particularly degrading, insulting, and malicious” comments referring to false claims regarding alleged trans identity and alleged criminality targeting ...
- European Space Agency confirms data breach
December 30, 2025
MILAN — The European Space Agency has confirmed a security breach of unclassified material from science servers following reports on social media. A threat actor claimed to have compromised ESA systems and to have leaked roughly 200 gigabytes of data. According to screenshots shared on X by French cybersecurity professional Seb Latom, the actor alleges they ...
- France’s postal and banking services disrupted by suspected DDoS attack
December 23, 2025
France’s national postal and banking services were knocked offline by a suspected distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on Monday, according to an announcement by La Poste. The postal service called the attack “a major network incident” that was disrupting “all of our information systems.” La Poste’s online mail and banking services, website, and mobile app are among ...

