Italy and Romania take down cyber fraud ring generating €20 million per year in criminal profits
The criminal group was using a large network of money mules in Italy to launder their criminal profits from a variety of cybercrime activities.
The Italian National Postal and Communication Police Unit and the Romanian National Police, supported by Europol and Eurojust, dismantled an organised criminal group involved in financial fraud, cybercrime and money laundering.
On 7 July, Italian and Romanian law enforcement authorities carried out 12 house searches and arrested 12 individuals (8 in Italy and 4 in Romania). „The operation led to the seizures of personal computers, credit cards, properties, vehicles and other assets with an overall estimated value of over €1.5 million,” according to the press release.
The criminal organisation was using a wide network of money mules in Italy, created to launder criminal proceeds from a variety of cybercrime activities. The criminal group was involved in financial frauds and cyber scams such as rental fraud (fraud through the advertisement of non-existent properties to rent) and CEO fraud (impersonating a company official to trigger large transfers to bogus accounts).
With these frauds, the criminals were deceiving victims across Europe into making wire transfers to Italian bank accounts, owned by the money mules. It is estimated that the criminal group has generated up to €20 million losses per year for victims across Europe.
DIICOT press release on the same topic
Anders Olofsson – former Head of Payments Finastra
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
