crime
Blow at British phone scammers: 120 arrests
A numeric code runs across a screen at the Central Office for Cybercrime Bavaria (ZCB). photo
© Nicolas Armer/dpa
Dupe and collect more than 20 people per minute with fake calls – that’s possible with the right technical equipment. It was offered by a gang on the Darknet – and has now been exposed.
The British police arrested around 120 people in the biggest attack on telephone scammers to date. Thousands of victims were cheated out of millions of euros using technology sold by the gang to a 35-year-old man on the dark web and via the short message service Telegram, the Metropolitan Police in London said on Thursday. A website that made a profit of around 3.7 million euros in just under a year and a half has been closed.
The gang reportedly sold technology that allowed criminals to make fake calls, send recorded messages and intercept one-time passwords. The users posed as banks, retail companies and government agencies, among others, according to Europol. According to the information, security authorities in Europe, Australia, the USA and Canada had worked together in the case. There were a total of 142 arrests. According to the information, more than ten million fraudulent calls were made worldwide, the damage amounted to around 115 million euros, 49 million of them in Great Britain alone.
There were 200,000 potential victims there, the London police said. At one point, more than 20 people were being called per minute. Numerous people gave away bank details that the criminals could then use to steal money. A victim was cheated out of three million pounds (almost 3.5 million euros), the reported average damage was 10,000 pounds.