Europol: Call center with crypto asset scam busted

Law enforcement authorities from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Kosovo and Lebanon have raided twelve call centers that were responsible for thousands of fraudulent calls every day. This resulted in the arrest of 21 suspects during the Europol "Operation Pandora" day of action. Allegedly, a potential multi-million euro loss was prevented.

As Europol has now announced, the investigators have brought down a criminal network responsible for defrauding thousands of victims with various scams. In addition to calls from fake police officers and investment fraud, marriage fraud was also part of the perpetrators' malicious toolbox.

International cooperation with a large German contribution

Europol emphasizes that an unprecedented, large-scale investigation by German law enforcement officials resulted in Operation Pandora, in which 39 suspects were identified. The EU authority reports that the starting signal was given in December last year when a bank employee became suspicious because a customer wanted to withdraw more than 100,000 euros. It turned out that the customer had been taken in by a "fake police officer". The police called from Freiburg prevented the victim from handing over the large sum and arrested the money collectors. When investigating the telephone numbers used, the officers were able to link them to more than 28,000 fraudulent calls from the previous 48 hours.

The investigation was extended and handed over to the LKA Baden-Württemberg, which in turn was supported by the BKA. It quickly emerged that the fraudsters came from several countries and practiced all kinds of telephone fraud. They pretended to be close relatives, bank employees, customer service staff or police officers. Using clever manipulation techniques, they shocked and cheated their victims out of their savings. Themes included false promises of lottery winnings, investment opportunities, debt collection, prepaid card scams and shock calls.

During their inquiries, investigators uncovered several call centers. The masterminds coordinated their operation, with call centers in each country having different priorities: Fraudulent debt collection came from Bosnia and Herzegovina, online banking fraud from Kosovo. Investment fraud mostly came from Albania, while prepaid card fraud was primarily committed from Lebanon.

Police officers working in shifts

Since December 2023, hundreds of LKA Baden-Württemberg officers have been working in shifts around the clock to track the specific calls from the call centers in real time. They have secured more than 1.3 million malicious conversations. In consultation with first the Freiburg public prosecutor's office and later the Karlsruhe public prosecutor's office, the aim was to prevent this type of crime in Germany. The deployed officers monitored up to 30 simultaneous calls. The LKA had to set up its own call center to take action against international criminal activities. If it turned out that a person called was a potential victim of the scam, the police contacted them and warned them about it.

In four months, more than 7500 calls were made and the threshold for taking action was exceeded. The detectives were able to avert a total loss of more than 10 million euros. They also traced the origins of the calls, the telephone numbers, their owners and the technical infrastructure such as servers. On this basis, 60 German law enforcement officers and hundreds of colleagues in other countries then swarmed into dozens of business and residential buildings and search them as part of Europol's concerted "Pandora" operation on April 18 of this year.

In the process, 21 arrests were made, and law enforcement officers were capable of seizing numerous data carriers, documents, cash and assets amounting to one million euros. A large amount of electronic evidence was also confiscated. The investigators hope that this will lead them on the trail of further call centers and fraudsters.

(dmk)