Europol – Call centres selling fake crypto taken down in Bulgaria, Serbia and Cyprus. At least EUR 2 mil. in losses. The investigation suggests that the ilegal gains may be in the hundreds of millions of euro.

The criminal organisations lured German victims to invest over EUR 2 million in bogus crypto investment websites.  

Law enforcement and judicial authorities from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany and Serbia, supported by Europol and Eurojust, have teamed up against organised crime groups involved in online investment fraud. This criminal network, comprising a number of different criminal actors operating through call centres, lured victims into investing large amounts of money into fake cryptocurrency schemes. Europol set up an Operational Task Force to support the cross-border investigation.

The Action day on 11 January 2022 led to:

– 15 arrests, 14 in Serbia and one in Germany;

– 261 individuals questioned, some of whom are awaiting prosecution (42 in Bulgaria, 2 in Cyprus, 3 in Germany and 214 in Serbia);    

– 22 locations searched (5 in Bulgaria, 2 in Cyprus, 15 in Serbia) including: 4 call centers and 11 residences in Serbia; 2 residences in Cyprus; 2 companies and 3 residences in Bulgaria.

– Seizures include 3 hardware wallets with about USD 1 million in cryptocurrencies on it and about EUR 50 000 in cash, 3 vehicles, electronic equipment and data back-ups, documents.

At least EUR 2 million in losses 

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 then persuaded them to make transfers of higher amounts. Currently, it is estimated that the financial damage to German victims is over two million euro, while other countries such as Switzerland, Australia and Canada also have victims. The investigation suggests that the number of unreported cases is likely to be much higher. This would mean that the illegal gains generated by the criminal groups, with at least four call centres in eastern Europe, may be in the hundreds of millions of euro. 

Europol has supported this investigation since June 2022 following an initial request from Germany. During the course of the investigation, Europol facilitated the information exchange, provided analytical support and coordinated operational activities. During the action day, Europol deployed two experts to Bulgaria and Serbia to cross-check operational information in real time against Europol’s databases in order to provide leads to investigators in the field. The experts also provided technical expertise to enable the extraction of information from mobile devices and IT infrastructure.