Tuesday, June 15, 2010

178 International Credit Card Fraudsters arrested

(Thanks to Brian Krebs for the tip on this story)

In the image below, from RTVE.es, someone is about to get a rude awakening, courtesy of the Spanish police:



The scene would be repeated by police in 14 countries who participated in the final phase of a two-year multi-national investigation of cyber criminals accused of creating cloned credit cards and using them in a variety of frauds.

According to Spanish police the organization stole more than 20 million Euros, and was also involved with robbery, fraud, extortion, sexual exploitation, and money laundering.


(image from rtve.es - click image for video)

Among those arrested:

76 people from Spain, with more than 120,000 credit card numbers and 5,000 clone cards in their possession in six separate workshops.

16 people from Romania, where 23 raids were conducted.

30 people from France in 9 raids

7 people from Italy, in 2 raids with 3,100 cloned cards seized

16 people from Germany, which included an individual the Spanish police say was "the most important technical person" in the European portion of the operation, as he could create the card cloning devices.

12 were arrested in Ireland in three raids

8 people were arrested in the USA.

US Secret Service Agent, William Cachinero, took part in the briefing by the Spanish Police commissioner, Serafin Castro. According to La Informacion reporters who attended the briefing, of the 76 arrested in Spain, only two were actually Spanish natives, the rest were Romanian in origin. Two of those arrested in Spain were important ring-leaders, including one who had traveled to the United States seeking to extend their criminal infrastructure. Many of those arrested had blood-ties with each other, and even the overseas criminals included many family members. Serafin explained that some of these criminals were addicted to a big spending lifestyle. He said that the top criminals were fond of partying with drugs and prostitutes where they would spend as much as 2,000 or 3,000 Euros each in a single night of partying.


(from www.rtve.es. Click image for source video)

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