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:

  • Scottish law firm Scullion Law suffers cyber attack

    March 31, 2024

    Scullion Law, which has offices on George Street Edinburgh, as well as in Glasgow, Hamilton and Madrid, had 155GB of data stolen in the attack by Black Basta. A spokesperson for the award-winning firm said: “We can confirm that we were recently the victim of a cyberattack. “We promptly notified the ICO and The Law Society ...

  • Cloud Werewolf spearphishes Russian and Belarus government employees with fake spa vouchers and federal decrees

    March 29, 2024

    The BI.ZONE Threat Intelligence team has revealed another campaign by Cloud Werewolf aiming at Russian and Belarusian government organizations. According to the researchers, the group ran at least five attacks in February and March. The adversaries continue to rely on phishing emails with Microsoft Office attachments. Placing malicious content on a remote server and limiting the ...

  • Hackers threaten to release ‘huge volume’ of stolen NHS Scotland data

    March 27, 2024

    A cybercrime group has claimed it will release a large volume of NHS Scotland data stolen during a sustained hacking attack. INC Ransom, an extortion operation, has posted a message on its dark web blog, threatening to release three terabytes – which equates to 3,000 gigabytes – of stolen health service patient and staff data. NHS ...

  • Chinese hackers targeted UK’s Electoral Commission and politicians, say security services

    March 25, 2024

    Chinese state-backed hackers were responsible for two “malicious” digital campaigns targeting the UK’s democratic institutions and politicians, the security services have found. The UK holds China responsible for a prolonged cyber-attack on the Electoral Commission during which Beijing allegedly accessed the personal details of about 40 million voters. Two individuals and a front company linked to ...

  • High Court order will deliver ‘swift management’ of compensation claims by those affected by PSNI data breach

    March 24, 2024

    Claims by officers and civilian staff following a major PSNI data breach will be managed in a “swift” manner following a High Court order being granted, it has been suggested. Following the granting of a Group Litigation Order (GLO), thousands of claims by those impacted by last year’s data breach can now be dealt with, the ...

  • APT29 Uses WINELOADER to Target German Political Parties

    March 22, 2024

    In late February 2024, Mandiant identified APT29 — a Russian Federation backed threat group linked by multiple governments to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) — conducting a phishing campaign targeting German political parties. Consistent with APT29 operations extending back to 2021, this operation leveraged APT29’s mainstay first-stage payload ROOTSAW (aka EnvyScout) to deliver a new backdoor ...