A site allowing large-scale scams dismantled in an international operation
The European Union's agency for police cooperation contributed to a huge crackdown that took place in several European countries, but also in Australia, the United States, Canada and Ukraine.
Jan HENNOP / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
Scotland Yard and Europol welcome this: in a joint international operation, the two police agencies succeeded in dismantling a website used by crooks active all over the world who had extracted more than 115 million euros from their victims. .
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Scotland Yard speaks of “
the biggest ever law enforcement operation by British police
”.
In the UK alone, more than a hundred people have been arrested, including one of the ringleaders of a vast scam ring called 'iSpoof'.
The site allowed criminals to pose as representatives of major banks using trustworthy phone numbers, with the aim of deceiving innocent people on a large scale and extracting money or account access codes from the nearly 200,000 victims.
A net to the four corners of the world
In total, the damage exceeds 115 million euros, according to Europol.
The European Union Agency for Police Cooperation contributed to this huge dragnet which took place in several European countries, but also in Australia, the United States, Canada and Ukraine.
Catherine de Bolle, Director General of Europol, is delighted.
According to her, the arrests “
send the message to cybercriminals that they can no longer hide behind international anonymity
”.
►Also listen: Financial scams: Africrypt, the biggest bitcoin scam of all time
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