European law enforcement authorities dismantled a fraud network operating call centers in Ukraine that scammed victims across Europe out of more than 10 million euros.
Authorities from the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine (supported by Eurojust) arrested 12 suspects out of 45 identified during the investigation. They also seized 21 vehicles, weapons, a polygraph machine, computers, cash, and counterfeit identification documents (including forged police officers and bank employee IDs) after 72 searches across three cities in Ukraine on December 9th.
This coordinated action targeted multiple call centers in Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Kyiv that employed approximately 100 people from across Europe.
The criminals defrauded over 400 known victims through various schemes, including impersonating bank employees and police officers, tricking victims into believing that their bank accounts had been compromised, and asking them to transfer funds to “safe” accounts controlled by the fraud ring.
In other cases, scammers stole victims’ bank credentials after persuading them to install remote access software on their devices, enabling the criminals to hijack their accounts. Additionally, some of the fraudsters in this scam network even went so far as to meet victims in person to collect cash using stolen card details.
The network operated as a commission-based criminal enterprise, paying employees up to 7 percent of proceeds from successful scams. Their leaders promised bonuses, including cash, cars, or Kyiv apartments, for employees who obtained more than 100,000 euros. However, investigators said these rewards were never distributed because the scammers never reached this goal.
“The criminal network recruited their employees from the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and other countries and brought them to their call centres in Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kyiv to extort money from victims in these and other European countries,” Eurojust said in a Tuesday press release.
“Members of the criminal group had different roles in the organisation, ranging from making calls and forging official certificates from the police and banks to collecting cash from their victims.”
This is the latest in a long list of similar fraud rings dismantled by European authorities in recent years, including the March 2022 takedown of a massive call center investment scam operation, which employed 200 “traders” to steal a minimum of €3 million from victims each month.
Last year, police also shut down multiple call centers across Europe controlled by a criminal organization involved in online investment fraud (also known as ‘pig butchering’ cryptocurrency scams) linked to millions of euros in losses.
In May, European authorities also shut down 12 fraud call centers in Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Lebanon as part of a joint law enforcement action dubbed “Operation PANDORA.” These call centers were linked to thousands of daily scam calls, and German police arrested 21 individuals following numerous raids on April 18th.
More recently, in July, Spanish police dismantled a large-scale investment fraud operation that caused cumulative damages exceeding €10 million ($11.8 million) following simultaneous raids in Barcelona, Madrid, Mallorca, and Alicante, one week after taking down an even larger cryptocurrency investment fraud ring that laundered over €460 million ($540 million) stolen from over 5,000 victims worldwide.
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