LONDON: UK police on Thursday said that they had disrupted an international criminal network, in their biggest-ever counter-fraud operation. The network was involved in scamming hundreds of thousands of people in million spam phone calls.
The police carried out the eighteen-month global investigation into the iSpoof.cc website. It worked in probes with Europol, FBI and law enforcement agencies worldwide.
142 suspects apprehended from several countries
A total of 142 suspects have been so far arrested, including its alleged London-based administrators. Suspects were apprehended in France, Netherlands, Australia, and Ireland. The servers in Ukraine and Netherlands were also shuttered during the operation.
UK police suspected that the organized groups are linked to the website and have access to tens of thousands of users. The website enables users to access software tools to steal the bank accounts of the victims and commit other scams.
Met Commissioner Mark Rowley said the probe showed a different approach to criminals exploiting technology.
Over 10 million fraudulent calls made across the world
According to the London force, suspects paid to access the site and make over 10 million fraudulent calls across the world, till August this year. Almost 24% calls made in the United States and more than a third in the United Kingdom that targeted 200,000 potential victims.
Fraud detection agencies have so far recorded 48 million pounds (58 million US Dollars) in the United Kingdom alone. Victims lost an average of 10,000 pounds. The largest single theft was worth 3 million pounds. Overall losses of the victims worldwide are estimated at over 100 million pounds. But according to Met, the real numbers could be much higher as the fraud is vastly under-reported.
The force added that the suspects are believed to have earned about 3.2 million pounds from the frauds. Only five thousand victims have so far been identified in UK, but Met has got the phone numbers of over 70,000 potential victims and it was in the contacting process with them. –APP/AFP
