Security News > 2024 > August > UK crimebusters shut down global call-spoofing outfit that claimed 170K-plus victims
The UK's National Crime Agency has shut down an outfit called Russian Coms - a call-spoofing service believed to have swindled hundreds of thousands of victims.
Police arrested a third man from Newham, age 28, who is accused of being an affiliate and a courier for the handsets required to use the spoofing service.
Earlier this week, one of the "Hundreds" of alleged scammers suspected of using the spoofing service was arrested in Potters Bar, England, by the police's Eastern Region Special Operations Unit.
The con worked like this: A criminal using the service would spoof the phone number of a bank, for example, then call a victim and attempt to trick the mark into transferring their money to a new account by claiming their current account had been subject to fraudulent activity.
For those sums, users were offered 24-hour support, hold music while they waited for help, encrypted calls, a voice changer, and the ability to place international calls, according to ads for the fraud service on Snapchat, Instagram, and Telegram.
"Criminals are increasingly using technology to carry out fraud and other crimes on an industrial scale, causing very real harm to victims in the UK and across the world," declared Adrian Searle, director of the National Economic Crime Centre within the NCA, in a statement.