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:
- German police seizes $2.17 billion in bitcoin in ‘most extensive’ action ever
January 30, 2024
German police have confiscated 50,000 bitcoin worth $2.17 billion in the country’s ‘most extensive’ cryptocurrency seizure ever, it said in a statement on Tuesday. “This is the most extensive seizure of bitcoins by law enforcement authorities in the Federal Republic of Germany to date,” police in the city of Dresden said. The investigation was supported by ...
- Ex-Google CEO’s secret startup to build Ukraine AI-powered $400 kamikaze drones
January 29, 2024
In a groundbreaking venture that was under wraps until the beginning of this month, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has created White Stork, a startup set to revolutionize warfare with its development of low-cost kamikaze drones. Although Storks are normally considered a symbol of peace, there is very little that is peaceful about the objective of ...
- Ukrainian activists launch devastating cyber attack on Russian Space Hydrometeorology Center
January 29, 2024
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense claims that pro-Ukrainian hacktivists breached the Russian Center for Space Hydrometeorology, known as “planeta” (планета), and wiped 2 petabytes of data. Planeta is a state research center that uses space satellite data and ground sources such as radars and stations to provide information and accurate predictions about weather, climate, natural disasters, extreme ...
- UK: Thousands of EU citizens ‘wrongly fined for breaching Ulez rules’ in potential record data breach
January 26, 2024
Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens were wrongly fined for driving in London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez), amid claims of a record data breach. Several EU countries have accused Transport for London (TfL) of illegally obtaining the names and addresses of their citizens to issue the penalties, The Guardian reports. The paper said more than ...
- UK councils remain downed by cyberattack
January 26, 2024
Three local councils in the United Kingdom continue to experience disruption to their online services, a week after confirming a cyberattack had knocked some systems offline. The councils for Canterbury, Dover, and Thanet — all of which are based in the U.K. county of Kent and have a combined population of almost 500,000 residents — said ...
- Russian hackers attack Ukraine MoD resources
January 25, 2024
Cyber attacks by Russian government-funded groups on the resources run by the Ministry of Defense using phishing, distribution of remote code execution malware, and blocking of access to web resources have been recorded. “Last day, attacks on Ukraine’s government and commercial sectors were recorded. Also, attacks by Russia-funded hacker groups were launched on the resources of ...
