Security News > 2022 > June > Interpol anti-fraud operation busts call centers behind business email scams
Law enforcement agencies around the world have arrested about 2,000 people and seized $50 million in a sweeping operation crackdown of social engineering and other scam operations around the globe.
In the latest action in the ongoing "First Light", an operation Interpol has coordinated annually since 2014, law enforcement officials from 76 countries raided 1,770 call centers suspected of running fraudulent operations such as telephone and romance scams, email deception scams, and financial crimes.
In May 2022, an Interpol operation dubbed Killer Bee arrested a Nigerian man for using a remote access trojan to steal corporate credentials and reroute financial transactions.
Interpol also is working closely not only with law enforcement agencies but also cybersecurity vendors like Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks and Trend Micro in an information-sharing program called Gateway, which was instrumental in the operation that led to the arrests of the SilverTerrier suspects.
"We're not going to be able to arrest ourselves out of this problem," Doug Witschi assistant director for cybercrime threat response and operations at Interpol, told The Register in April.
Singaporean law enforcement agencies, using information gleaned from the operation, rescued a teenager who had been tricked through a scam into pretending to be kidnapped in order to collect a $1.6 million ransom from his parents, according to Interpol.