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3 weeks ago
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In an international operation, the State Police (VP) have arrested five people who, under the guise of legitimate business, helped fraudsters set up anonymous online accounts to defraud people in different countries. The material damage caused to the victims is estimated at almost € 5 million, the police said on 17 October.
The international operation "SIMcartel" dismantled the "SIMbox" infrastructure in Latvia and arrested five individuals who, under the guise of legitimate business, were using the opportunity to create anonymous online accounts to commit fraud. The platform was designed for anonymous communication and payments.
The "SIMbox" platform offered the possibility to use mobile phone numbers from more than 80 different countries, technically allowing anonymous registration to more than 160 online services. These services created around 50 million online accounts from which online fraud could be carried out.
The existence of this platform has led to the identification of victims from Latvia, Estonia and Austria. Each country is currently investigating the matter, the police said.
The information gathered so far indicates that at least 1,500 people have been victims of online fraud in Latvia, with material losses of around €420 000, while in Austria, the fraud reached at least 1,700 people, with material losses of at least €4.5 million.
On 10 October, the State Police Cybercrime Combating Directorate, in cooperation with the anti-terrorism unit "Omega", dismantled the criminal "SIMbox" infrastructure and detained four persons. One is believed to be the organiser of the illegal service, while the others are technical staff.
All detainees are Latvian citizens- women born in 1987 and 1970, men born in 1977 and 1982. Another person has been detained in Latvia in connection with the offence and was previously declared internationally wanted by the Estonian police on suspicion of other serious offences.
In 14 raids at various addresses, 1,200 SIMbox devices were seized, which simultaneously carried 40,000 SIM cards from different countries, and five servers were seized, completely taking over the information technology (IT) infrastructure of the entire company, including the two company websites "gogetsms.com" and "apisim.com".
Four exclusive vehicles were also seized, as well as 431,000 euro in personal bank accounts and 266,000 euro in cryptocurrency.
Three of the persons arrested on 10 October were subjected to a non-custodial security measure, while the man born in 1982 was remanded in custody.
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