Twenty Cyber-Criminals Detained over EUR1m Bank Heist

An investigation initiated in 2016 into a cyber-crime of 2-yrs long period, by the Italian National Police and the Romanian National Police in active coordination with Europol, J-CAT (Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce) of the agency, and Eurojust resulted in the detention of twenty alleged criminals after successful searches conducted on March 28.

Eleven individuals in Italy along with 9 in Romania are still under police custody because they are suspected of executing banking fraud which led to the theft of EUR1m out of the accounts of several hundred clients of two prominent banks. The officials from Romania carried out three house searches, whilst the Police from Italy issued ten 'home' along with PC searches order. Helpnetsecurity.com posted this, March 29, 2018.

In particular, Italian nationals comprised the crime syndicate that was properly organized while relying on spear phishing electronic mails that spoofed tax authorities for digging at the victims' Internet banking credentials.

The victims, recipients of the spear phishing messages clicked on one given web-link inside the e-mail only to land on one phony page of certain genuine banking site. Here the criminals harvested the account credentials of the victims. The criminals subsequently utilized the banking credentials for making funds transfers into their own accounts followed with taking out the money from automatic teller machines situated inside Romania with the aid of payment cards.

The high order of OCG (organized crime gang) carried on with its criminal operations with the utilization of encrypted chat apps. To set forth its power, the OCG applied threatening and castigatory techniques to both rivals and associates. There's also suspicion on the OCG over execution of prostitution, human as well as drug trafficking, money laundering, and taking part within a criminal group.

To back the investigation, Europol supplied tailored intelligence assessment as also expertise to the probe conductors while enforced mobile offices in both countries. The measures of investigation being very demanding that were run globally, the judicial authorities from Italy and Romania called upon creating one JIT (joint investigation team) that reportedly got established March 2017 between the two nations with help from Eurojust.

» SPAMfighter News - 4/5/2018