Europol: 7 arrested in Cybercrime-as-a-Service takedown


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:

  • Greek police data leak exposes details of elite crime-fighting unit members

    October 18, 2024

    A Greek police officers association says it is planning legal action after names and details of hundreds of officers from a new elite crime-fighting agency were published on the internet. The Directorate for Combating Organised Crime, DAOE, was launched Thursday to tackle organized crime activities including contract killings, fuel smuggling and money laundering. Police officials confirmed ...

  • European companies anxious over non-implementation of EU cyber rules

    October 17, 2024

    Most EU member states are set to miss an implementation deadline falling today (17 October) to implement rules to protect critical entities against cyber-attacks and organisations are also concerned about fragmentation of such rules. Euronews reported last week that the European Commission had so far only received confirmations from Belgium and Croatia on transposition of the ...

  • Cyber Attack Hits French Leading News Agency AFP

    October 14, 2024

    French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) suffered a cyber attack that disrupted its content delivery infrastructure and file transfer systems. It operates English, French, Arabic, Portuguese, and Spanish news channels and employs over 2,400 people in 150 countries. AFP said it was working to restore impacted systems and has engaged French cybersecurity agency ANSSI and law ...

  • How did a ‘bank snooping’ scandal ensnare politicians in Italy?

    October 14, 2024

    Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is at the centre of a “snooping scandal” in which a bank branch employee at Italy’s biggest bank is alleged to have illegally accessed and “spied on” thousands of private accounts. A clerk at Banca Intesa Sanpaolo has been accused of gaining unauthorised access to more than 3,500 accounts belonging to ...

  • London taxi drivers wrongly hit with Ulez charges after TfL cyber attack

    October 13, 2024

    Thousands of black cab drivers have been wrongly hit with Ulez and Congestion Charge fines after the cyber attack against London’s transport authority. The Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association (LTDA) said it had received thousands of calls this week from panicking cabbies who had begun receiving automated penalties from Transport for London (TfL). Read more… Source: MSN News Sign up ...

  • EU Network and Information Security (NIS) Directive: Parliament adopts new law to strengthen EU-wide resilience

    October 11, 2024

    Rules requiring EU countries to meet stricter supervisory and enforcement measures and harmonise their sanctions were approved by MEPs on Thursday. The legislation, already agreed between MEPs and the Council in May, will set tighter cybersecurity obligations for risk management, reporting obligations and information sharing. The requirements cover incident response, supply chain security, encryption and vulnerability disclosure, ...