Security News
The Dutch police announced the arrest of three individuals in connection with a "Large-scale" criminal operation involving data theft, extortion, and money laundering. The Politie said its cybercrime team started the investigation nearly two years ago, in March 2021, after a large Dutch company suffered a security breach.
The Amsterdam cybercrime police team has arrested three men for ransomware activity that generated €2.5 million from extorting small and large organizations in multiple countries. The extortion involved threats of leaking the data or destroying the company's digital infrastructure.
An encrypted messaging service that has been on law enforcement's radar since a 2019 raid on an old NATO bunker has been shut down after a sweeping series of raids across Europe last week. In a search of 79 properties in German, The Netherlands, Belgium and Poland last Friday, Authorities in those four countries arrested 48 people who were users, operators and administrators of the Exclu crypto communications service.
Tax authorities from Australia, Canada, France, the UK and the USA have conducted a joint probe into "Electronic sales suppression software" - applications that falsify point of sale data to help merchants avoid paying tax on their true revenue. A Friday announcement [PDF] from the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement, states that the probe "Resulted in the arrest of five individuals in the United Kingdom who allegedly designed and sold electronic sales suppression systems internationally."
The Australian Federal Police have arrested four suspected members of a financial investment scam syndicate estimated to have stolen $100 million from victims worldwide. AFP says the investment scam group manipulated legitimate electronic trading platforms in combination with "Pig butchering."
The Spanish National Police have arrested 55 members of the 'Black Panthers' cybercrime group, including one of the organization's leaders based in Barcelona. The gang was operating four specialized activity cells dedicated to social engineering, vishing, phishing, and carding, having a very organized structure.
Europol has arrested hundreds of fraudsters, money launderers and cocaine kingpins, and shut down thousands of websites selling pirated and counterfeit products in a series of raids over the past month. Cops across several continents seized 127,365 fake designer watches, shoes, accessories, clothes, perfumes, electronics, phone cases and other counterfeit products worth more than Є3.8 million.
A coordinated law enforcement effort has dismantled an online phone number spoofing service called iSpoof and arrested 142 individuals linked to the operation. Worldwide losses exceeded €115 million, with over 200,000 potential victims believed to have been directly targeted through iSpoof in the U.K. alone, the Metropolitan Police noted.
Ukraine's cyber police and Europol have identified and arrested five key members of an international investment fraud ring estimated to have caused losses of over €200 million per year. The operation of the investment scheme was spread across multiple European countries, including Ukraine, Germany, Spain, Latvia, Finland, and Albania.
A 22-year-old student German federal police believe to be the administrator of one of the largest German-speaking, dark-web forums has been arrested. According to German law enforcement, the student, from Lower Bavaria, served as the operator of the third version of Deutschland im Deep Web since November 2018.