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Legislation enforcement authorities throughout Europe have dismantled a complicated cybercrime-as-a-service operation that enabled criminals to commit widespread fraud and different severe offenses throughout the continent.
The coordinated motion, codenamed ‘SIMCARTEL’, resulted in seven arrests, the seizure of over 40,000 lively SIM playing cards, and the takedown of infrastructure that facilitated crimes inflicting thousands and thousands of euros in damages.
Large Prison Infrastructure Uncovered
The operation, performed on October 10, 2025, in Latvia, led to the arrest of 5 Latvian nationals and the seizure of essential prison infrastructure.
Investigators confiscated roughly 1,200 SIM field gadgets working 40,000 lively SIM playing cards, together with a whole lot of 1000’s of further SIM playing cards.
Authorities additionally seized 5 servers, took management of two web sites providing the unlawful service, and froze EUR 431,000 in financial institution accounts and USD 333,000 in cryptocurrency accounts.
Key outcomes of the operation:
- 26 searches carried out throughout a number of areas.
- 7 people arrested, together with 5 Latvian nationals.
- 1,200 SIM field gadgets seized working 40,000 lively SIM playing cards.
- 5 servers internet hosting prison infrastructure taken down.
- EUR 431,000 in financial institution accounts and USD 333,000 in cryptocurrency frozen.
- 4 luxurious autos confiscated.
The prison community operated extremely subtle on-line companies via web sites that supplied phone numbers registered to people from over 80 international locations.
These numbers had been rented to criminals worldwide who used them to create faux accounts on social media and communication platforms, successfully masking their true identities and areas whereas committing cybercrimes.
Enabling Widespread Prison Exercise
Investigators have linked the community to greater than 1,700 particular person cyber fraud instances in Austria and 1,500 in Latvia, with monetary losses totaling roughly EUR 4.5 million in Austria alone and EUR 420,000 in Latvia.
The true scope of the operation is staggering, with greater than 49 million on-line accounts created utilizing the unlawful service.
Prison actions enabled by the service:
- Phishing and smishing assaults concentrating on banking credentials.
- Daughter-son scams by way of WhatsApp demanding pressing funds.
- Funding fraud schemes utilizing remote-access software program.
- Pretend on-line marketplaces and fraudulent financial institution web sites.
- Pretend police officer scams concentrating on Russian-speaking victims.
- Distribution of kid sexual abuse materials.
The infrastructure enabled numerous prison schemes together with phishing, smishing, funding fraud, and pretend market scams.
Perpetrators used the service to conduct “daughter-son scams” on WhatsApp, create faux store web sites, impersonate cops, and facilitate different severe crimes together with migrant smuggling and the distribution of kid sexual abuse materials.
Worldwide Cooperation Brings Outcomes
The profitable operation concerned coordinated efforts between authorities from Austria, Estonia, Latvia, and Finland, supported by Europol and Eurojust.
In the course of the motion day, regulation enforcement performed 26 searches and seized 4 luxurious autos along with the digital infrastructure.
Europol deployed specialists to Riga and collaborated with the Shadowserver Basis to dismantle the technical infrastructure, displaying splash pages on the prison service web sites to inform customers of the takedown.
The investigation stays ongoing as authorities proceed to uncover the complete extent of the community’s prison actions and determine further perpetrators who utilized the service.
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