"Euro Police Bust Multimillion-Dollar Crypto Fraud Gang"

Law enforcers across Europe made multiple arrests recently as part of a crackdown on a criminal network suspected of running a large-scale crypto-investment fraud scheme.  Coordinated by Europol, police made 14 arrests in Serbia and one in Germany and questioned 261 individuals in Serbia, Germany, Cyprus, and Bulgaria, as part of an action day on January 11.  Europol noted that 22 locations were searched, including private homes and four call centers believed to have been used in the scheme.  Europol explained that the suspects used advertisements on social networks to lure victims to websites covertly operated by the criminals, which offered seemingly exceptional investment opportunities in cryptocurrencies.  The victims, mainly from Germany, would first invest low, three-digit sums.  Fake price hikes leading to supposedly lucrative profits for investors were used to persuade them to make transfers of higher amounts.  Europol estimated the financial damage to German victims at about $2m but claimed the number of unreported cases will make the amount of financial damage caused to victims likely to be far higher, with victims also located in Switzerland, Australia, and Canada.  Europol noted that the criminal groups may have made hundreds of millions of euros as a result of the fraud schemes, which used call center scammers to persuade victims to part with their cash.  During the action day, police also seized three hardware wallets with around $1m worth of cryptocurrencies loaded on them, $54,000 in cash, three vehicles, electronic equipment, data back-ups, and various documents.  Europol noted that call center operations are an increasingly popular way for fraud rings to social engineer their victims.

Infosecurity reports: "Euro Police Bust Multimillion-Dollar Crypto Fraud Gang"