Phishing gang arrested in eastern Europe and USA
More than 20 FBI offices are said to have been involved in the investigation into the global identity theft ring, which is claimed to have carried out a phishing attack against a major financial institution between August and October 2004.
In the investigation called “Operation Cardkeeper”, FBI agents, worked with local authorities to identify a criminal ring which was allegedly selling stolen identities, credit card and bank account information.
The suspected ringleader of the gang, a Polish man known as “Blindroot”, is said to have hacked into third party computers to rent out webspace to other criminals who wanted to host bogus websites for the purposes of phishing.
Four arrests were made in the USA and 13 people were apprehended in Poland. The American suspects were caught with cards and machines used to encode data onto blank credit cards and when authorities attempted to search the premises, one suspect tried to flush counterfeit credit cards down the toilet. In addition to the arrests, raids were reportedly carried out in New York, Texas, Tennessee, Nebraska, Georgia and Ohio, and search warrants served on three other suspects under investigation in Romania.
Source: Sophos.