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, and two key suspects were placed in pretrial detention.
The investigation began in the autumn of 2022, following reports of fraudulent phone calls in which scammers impersonated bank employees to extract sensitive information, such as addresses and security answers, from victims. The stolen data was traced back to a specialised online marketplace that operated as a central hub for the trade of illegally obtained information.
Read more…
Source: Europol
Related:
- UK man pleads guilty to hijacking Twitter accounts including of Joe Biden and Elon Musk
May 10, 2023
A British man has pleaded guilty over his role in schemes to hack the Twitter accounts of celebrities including Joe Biden and Elon Musk, as well as stealing $794,000 in cryptocurrency. Joseph James O’Connor, 23, entered his guilty plea in a New York court after being extradited from Spain on 26 April. Read more… Source: The Guardian
- Spanish police dismantle phishing operation linked to crime ring
May 9, 2023
The National Police of Spain have arrested two hackers, 15 members of a criminal organization, and another 23 people involved in illegal financial operations in Madrid and Seville for alleged bank scams. The cybercrime operation is an email and SMS-based phishing campaign that allegedly scammed over 300,000 people and resulted in confirmed losses of at least ...
- Ransomware attack hampering Dallas police operations
May 3, 2023
A major component of the City of Dallas’ police communications system went down Monday morning, as well as some other city services. CBS News Texas’ J.D. Miles has multiple sources confirming the outage was caused by a ransomware attack against the city’s systems. The outage is impacting DPD’s computer assisted dispatch system, called CAD, which directs police ...
- Genesis Market Disrupted in International Cyber Operation
April 6, 2023
U.S. Attorney Gregory J. Haanstad for the Eastern District of Wisconsin joined the Attorney General and other Justice Department officials in announcing a coordinated international operation that resulted in the dismantlement of Genesis Market, a criminal marketplace accessible on the dark web and clear web that advertised and sold packages of account access credentials – ...
- UK criminal records office suffers two-month “cyber security incident”
April 5, 2023
The UK’s national office for managing criminal record information (ACRO) has confirmed it’s currently trying to recover from a two-month “cyber security incident”. Few details were revealed by the organisation and other authorities, other than that the attack took place between 17 January and 21 March 2023. Read more… Source: IT Pro
- Ukrainian cops nab suspects accused of stealing $4.3m from victims across Europe
April 1, 2023
Ukrainian cops have arrested two suspects and detained 10 others for their alleged roles in a cybercrime gang that used phishing scams and phony online marketplaces to steal more than $4.3 million from over 1,000 victims across Europe. The fraudsters created more than 100 phishing sites to obtain victims’ bank card information and access their accounts, ...