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:
- International operation against ‘phone phishing’ gang in Belgium and the Netherlands
December 6, 2024
Europol has supported Belgian and Dutch authorities in an international operation against a ‘phone phishing’ gang that has led to the arrest of 8 suspects. On the action day, law enforcement also carried out 17 searches in different locations in Belgium and the Netherlands. Although most of the criminal activities took place in Belgium, the main ...
- Europol: Fraudulent shopping sites tied to cybercrime marketplace taken offline
December 5, 2024
Europol has supported the dismantling of a sophisticated criminal network responsible for facilitating large-scale online fraud. In an operation led by the Hanover Police Department (Polizeidirektion Hannover) and the Verden Public Prosecutor’s Office (Staatsanwaltschaft Verden) in Germany, and supported by law enforcement authorities across Europe, over 50 servers were seized, significant digital evidence was secured, ...
- NCA disrupts $multi-billion Russian money laundering networks with links to, drugs, ransomware and espionage, resulting in 84 arrests
December 4, 2024
An international NCA-led investigation – Operation Destabilise – has exposed and disrupted Russian money laundering networks supporting serious and organised crime around the world: spanning from the streets of the UK, to the Middle East, Russia, and South America. Investigators have identified two Russian-speaking networks collaborating at the heart of the criminal enterprise; Smart and TGR. ...
- Ireland: Woman, 20s, arrested over potential data breach at utility service provider
December 4, 2024
A woman has been arrested over a potential data breach at a national utility service provider last year. The woman, aged in her 20s, was arrested yesterday and is detained at a garda station in Dublin. The potential breach was identified by members of the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau in 2023. It was referred to ...
- UK: Ransomware hackers target NHS hospitals with new cyberattacks
December 4, 2024
Ransomware hackers have continued an assault on National Health Service trusts across the United Kingdom by compromising multiple hospitals, exposing sensitive patient data and disrupting emergency services. Inc Ransom, a prolific Russia-linked ransomware group that claimed responsibility for an attack on NHS Scotland earlier this year, now claims to have breached the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital ...
- Horns&Hooves campaign delivers NetSupport RAT and BurnsRAT
December 2, 2024
Recent months have seen a surge in mailings with lookalike email attachments in the form of a ZIP archive containing JScript scripts. The script files – disguised as requests and bids from potential customers or partners – bear names such as “Запрос цены и предложения от Индивидуального предпринимателя <ФИО> на август 2024. According to Kaspersky telemetry, ...

