Law enforcers across Europe made multiple arrests this week as part of a crackdown on a criminal network suspected of running a large-scale crypto-investment fraud scheme.
Coordinated by Europol, police made 14 arrests in Serbia and one in Germany, and questioned 261 individuals in the two countries, plus Cyprus and Bulgaria, as part of an action day on January 11.
Some 22 locations were searched, including private homes and four call centers believed to have been used in the scheme, according to Europol.
“The suspects used advertisements on social networks to lure victims to websites covertly operated by the criminals, which offered seemingly exceptional investment opportunities in cryptocurrencies,” the policing organization explained.
“The victims, mainly from Germany, would first invest low, three-digit sums. Fake price hikes leading to supposedly lucrative profits for investors then persuaded them to make transfers of higher amounts.”
Police estimated the financial damage to German victims at about €2m ($2m) but claimed the number of unreported cases is likely to be far higher, with victims also located in Switzerland, Australia and Canada.
It said that the criminal groups may have made hundreds of millions of euros as a result of the fraud schemes, which used call center scammers to persuade victims to part with their cash.
During the action day, police also seized three hardware wallets with around $1m worth of cryptocurrencies loaded on them, €50,000 ($54,000) in cash, three vehicles, electronic equipment and data back-ups, and various documents.
Call center operations are an increasingly popular way for fraud rings to social engineer their victims.
Earlier this month Ukrainian police busted a call center operation accused of defrauding an estimated 18,000 Kazakhstani victims. The staff would call their targets, claiming to work in their bank’s IT department.