Mafia-linked cybercrime gang busted in joint operation by Spanish and Italian police
Arrest of 106 suspects involved in online fraud and other criminal activities
Spanish and Italian police said on Monday that they have dismantled an organised crime group with links to the Italian Mafia.
The joint law enforcement operation, supported by Europol, resulted in the arrests of 106 suspects involved in online fraud, drug trafficking, money laundering and property crime.
Most of the arrests took place on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, while some individuals were also arrested in Italy.
According to Europol, these alleged criminals tricked hundreds of victims, mostly Italian, into sending large amounts of money to Spanish bank accounts controlled by the group. The victims were defrauded through phishing attacks, and other cyber frauds, such as SIM swapping and business email compromise (BEC).
The money received into the bank accounts was laundered through a network of shell firms and money mules. It was also reinvested in a variety of other criminal activities, such as narcotics, prostitution and arms trafficking.
The investigators found that the group 'used a highly organised structure' including employing technical experts for creating phishing domains and carrying out online frauds and experienced operatives for managing money mules, and for cryptocurrency and money laundering.
The group is estimated to have made around €10 million in profit last year, according to Europol.
During the operation, 16 houses were searched in the Spanish Canary Islands, especially Santa Cruz de Tenerife, as well as Isernia and Turin in Italy. A total of 118 bank accounts were seized, along with 224 credit cards, point-of-sale terminals, dozens of SIM cards and an illicit marijuana farm.
Most of the victims were Italians, Europol said, although some were also located in Spain, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania and the UK.
Members of the group were linked to four Italian mafia organisations: Nuvoletta, Camorra Napolitana, Sacra Corona Unita and Casamonica.
Spanish police said they silently tracked the suspects for about a year to gain detailed information about their internal structure.
Europol facilitated the information exchange for the investigation and also provided analytical support. It also deployed two analysts and one forensic expert at Tenerife and one analyst in Italy for the operation.
The joint operation comes months after the arrest of more than 800 people worldwide in June following a sting that involved the interception of encrypted communications by law enforcement agencies.
In the operation, the FBI and other agencies secretly ran the ANOM messaging app, which enabled them to access more than 27 million messages sent by criminals through the app.
Last year, the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) and police carried out their biggest ever operation by infiltrating an encrypted phone network that was being used by hundreds of firearm traffickers and drug dealers to coordinate their criminal activities.
The NCA said at that time that cracking of the encryption used by EncroChat's secured messaging tool enabled it to make almost 750 arrests across Britain. A large number of arrests were also made in other European countries, including France and the Netherlands.