Seven people have been arrested and more than 100 servers seized in a coordinated law enforcement action against an investment fraud network that started unravelling after a complaint from a German couple.
Seized servers (Source: Europol)
The couple went to the police in 2022 after putting their savings into an online trading platform and discovering they could not withdraw their profits. The investigation that followed uncovered an international scheme.
Europol says the network’s potential victims live in at least 50 countries, and Eurojust puts the estimated losses at over €4 million.
“The fraudsters promised enormous profits within a short period through trading in cryptocurrencies, foreign currencies and stocks. After transferring a small sum of money, the victims were shown inflated profits, making the platform appear legitimate,” Eurojust wrote.
From there, the alleged brokers “put psychological pressure on the victims to invest further large sums of money,” the EU agency for criminal justice cooperation said. Those who tried to take their money out ran into one stalling tactic after another. “Eventually, the perpetrators disappeared, and the victims realised their money was gone.”
A supplier of scam websites
The case has moved forward in stages. A first international action day ended with two arrests and the seizure of a large amount of evidence. Going through that material, investigators identified seven more suspects, among them the managers of the call centres that talked victims into handing over more money. A second action day brought more arrests, and police seized evidence and cash.
Evidence from that second round led investigators to a company based in Cyprus and Israel that allegedly offered “crime-as-a-service,” supplying various criminal groups with the fraudulent websites they used to run online scams. Its suspected clients, believed to operate fraudulent call centres, were traced to Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia.
On Tuesday, police searched 17 locations, including a call centre in Kosovo, and seized the servers along with other evidence and assets. The seven suspects were arrested for surrender or extradition to Germany.
The investigation was led by prosecutors in Itzehoe, Germany, with police and prosecutors from Cyprus, Finland, Albania, Israel, Kosovo and North Macedonia taking part in the operation.
Eurojust set up two joint investigation teams and coordinated the judicial work on the action day, while Europol sent experts to Albania and Kosovo to help with digital forensics during the raids.
