Security News > 2022 > May > Spanish police dismantle phishing gang that emptied bank accounts
The Spanish police have announced the arrest of 13 people and the launch of investigations on another seven for their participation in a phishing ring that stole online bank credentials.
The threat actors used phishing lures to trick their victims into believing they received an alert from their bank and proceeded to steal their account credentials.
The police opened the investigation in 2018 when the first complaints were submitted both by victims and by the impersonated bank, who noticed unauthorized purchases in electronic stores in foreign countries, most often in France.
The subsquent investigation uncovered the use of VPNs to make it appear as if the threat actors were based in Morocco, France, Germany, or the USA. As part of the phishing attack, the threat actors sent out fake "Security alerts" via email, claiming there were problems with bank cards and accounts.
The links provided for supposedly resolving the issue took the victims to a phishing site that masqueraded the bank's actual website, tricking them into entering their login credentials.
In November 2021, the Spanish police uncovered another local crime network that used money mules to direct funds to Benin, so using African countries to evade scrutiny seems common among Spanish cyber-criminals.