The headquarters of the Interpol international police in Lyon.
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Laurent Cirpiani / AP / SIPA
More than 20,000 people have been arrested since September 2019 during an operation coordinated by Interpol around the world to fight against phone and internet scams, the Lyon-based organization said on Wednesday.
This large-scale operation, dubbed “First Light”, has led to investigations in 35 countries and has led to more than 10,000 searches and the arrest of 21,549 suspected criminals, operators, fraudsters and suspects. money laundering.
Nearly 154 million dollars (127 million euros) of illicit funds on 310 frozen accounts were also seized.
One year.
35 countries.
20,000 arrests.
150 million dollars intercepted.
Operation First Light is a year-long investigative clampdown on phone and email scams worldwide, coordinated by INTERPOL.
Read more ⬇️ https://t.co/86NfvouMcp
- INTERPOL (@INTERPOL_HQ) December 9, 2020
Several months of investigation
These arrests are the result of several months of investigation and of a series of "purple notices" published by Interpol, which allowed the sharing of information on the operating methods, objects, devices and methods of concealment used by the criminals.
The suspects were involved in several types of online scams, mainly of the “social engineering” type.
This scam consists of manipulating people in order to obtain passwords or bank details without their knowledge, said Interpol in a press release.
Criminals have also been able to take advantage of the context of the coronavirus pandemic, which is conducive to new schemes.
Most of the scams involved e-mails proposing business associations, romantic and sexual scams, or SMS “smishing” or “phishing”.
The objective was to steal personal or banking data of the people concerned.
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