Euro cops take down cybercrime network with 49M fake accounts

Summary

European police forces have arrested seven people and dismantled a large-scale cybercrime-as-a-service operation that saw almost 50 million fake online accounts created across social media and communications platforms for fraud purposes. Seized SIM boxes in Latvia Latvian Police/Europol The coordinated takedown, codenamed Operation SIMCARTEL, took place on October 10 in Latvia, as part of a joint investigation by police in the Baltic nation, Austria, Estonia and Finland. Five Latvian nationals and two additional suspects were arrrested by police. In the raid, authorities seized 1200 SIM boxes, with the devices containing 40,000 active SIM cards. Five Internet servers were taken down, along with two websites that had been offering the illegal service, gogetsms.com and apisim.com. VIDEO The network operated as a for-hire service, providing temporary telephone numbers from more than 80 countries to criminals who needed to mask their identities whilst committing cybercrimes. Fraudsters used the service to bypass two-factor authentication systems so as to create vast numbers of fake accounts. Once created, the bogus accounts served as starting points for various scams including investment fraud, fake online shops, and phishing attacks. The infrastructure facilitated a range of offences including fraud, extortion, migrant smuggling and the distribution of child sexual abuse material. Scammers employed tactics including the "daughter-son scam", where criminals persuaded victims that their child needed urgent financial help, alongside more traditional phishing and smishing attacks. Some of the criminals specialised in fraud on second-hand marketplaces, whilst others set up fake investment websites and bogus online shops. In other cases, criminals impersonated police officers using forged identification, personally collecting funds from victims. Financial losses in Austria alone are said to be to around €4.5 million ($7.4 million), with an additional €420,000 ($693,000) lost...