Law enforcers from across Europe have come together to tackle a major Ukraine-based fraud operation said to have cost consumers in the region more than €10m ($11.7m).
Eurojust coordinated the operation, which involved authorities from the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine.
An action day on December 9 resulted in 72 searches across three Ukrainian cities: Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kyiv. Twelve people were arrested and 45 identified as suspects.
Police seized forged police officer and bank employee IDs, computers, laptops, hard drives, mobile phones and a polygraph machine. Authorities also seized cash, 21 vehicles and various weapons and ammunition.
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The fraud ring appears to have centered around call centers operating in the three Ukrainian cities. Some scammers would trick victims into downloading remote access software, which was then used to steal banking logins. Others apparently claimed victims’ bank accounts had been compromised and directed them to transfer funds to ‘safe’ accounts under their control.
Around 100 people from the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and other countries were recruited by the network to work in the call centers, where they would receive up to 7% of the proceeds to encourage them to continue scamming victims.
According to Eurojust, the scammers were promised bonuses including cash, cars or a new apartment in Kyiv if they ‘earned’ over €100,000 in proceeds.
Members of the network had different roles, including making scam phone calls, forging official documents from the police and banks, and even collecting cash from victims.
Call Center Fraud Proliferates
The December arrests in Ukraine are just the latest in a long line of police operations against fraud gangs operating in the region.
In September this year, European police smashed a €100m cryptocurrency investment fraud operation after raiding properties in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Romania and Bulgaria. A few months earlier, an operation involving law enforcers in Israel, the UK, Cyprus, Albania and Germany busted a €3m investment fraud gang that contacted its victims via call centers.
Back in 2022, authorities in Ukraine exposed a network of call centers in the country engaged in financial fraud targeting domestic and EU citizens. In June that year, Ukrainian police arrested nine alleged members of a prolific phishing gang that made 100 million hryvnias ($3.4m) from unwitting locals.