The suspects were responsible for more than 20 000 fraudulent transactions with compromised credit cards, with an estimated value exceeding EUR 5 million.
The eCommerce Action 2017 (eComm 2017) is a joint law enforcement operation which took place in 26 countries from 6 to 16 June 2017. Europols European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) coordinated this operation from its headquarters in The Hague, with direct assistance from payment card schemes, banks, logistic companies and e-merchants. EC3 also supported national authorities’ on-the-spot by providing analytical services to the Member States.
Law enforcement and private sector formed teams for practical cooperation. The participating countries are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Colombia, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Hungary, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. They received support and operational information from Canada, USA, Iceland and Georgia.
The investigative measures revealed that some of the suspects have been involved in identity fraud, phishing, cyber-attacks, romance fraud, illegal use of stolen passports, illegal immigration, online child sexual exploitation, drugs trafficking and money laundering.
Around 200 websites and social media accounts were used to broker fraudulently purchased electronic goods. The requests to have them taken down were sent to the hosting companies. Some of these criminally used social media platforms had more than 10 000 followers each. It is suspected that the followers formed potential customer bases for these organised crime groups. Taking down these accounts has a significant collaborative impact on the industry.
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