Europol dismantles international network that carried out millions of phone scams

A criminal network that swindled millions of dollars from hundreds of thousands of victims across continents through fraudulent phone calls has been dismantled in an international police operation, Scotland Yard and Europol announced on Thursday (24).

Total losses worldwide exceed 100 million pounds ($119 million) and 142 suspects have been arrested, the European Union’s police cooperation agency said.

Led by UK authorities, the international operation had the collaboration of the US FBI and police from several EU countries, Australia, Canada and Ukraine, Europol reported.

This is the biggest anti-fraud operation ever undertaken by British police, according to Scotland Yard.

In the UK alone, over 100 people have been arrested, mostly for fraud. Among them is 34-year-old Teejai Fletcher, alleged organizer of the iSpoof platform, which facilitated large-scale scams.

The number of potential victims rises to over 200,000, with losses of tens of millions of pounds in the UK alone. The average amount of money defrauded individually is £10,000.

The iSpoof website sold computer tools to criminals that allowed them to impersonate representatives of large banks or institutions, displaying trusted phone numbers of banks, tax offices or government agencies to obtain money or access codes to bank accounts by phone or SMS. .

Fraudsters using the platform pay in bitcoins, between £150 and £5,000, depending on the service purchased.

Until August of this year, 10 million calls were made all over the world, 40% of them to the United States and more than 30% to the United Kingdom.

“The use of technology by organized criminals is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century,” said London Police Chief Mark Rowley.

Authorities continue to investigate to locate more users of the fraudulent network.

The arrests “send a message to cybercriminals that they can no longer hide behind international anonymity,” said Catherine de Bolle, director general of Europol.