All news with #scammer tag

🔎 Europol announced arrests and seizures after a two‑year probe into professionalised Albanian scam call centres that ran an investment fraud operation estimated to have cost victims at least €50m. Authorities arrested 10 suspects and searched three call centres and nine homes, seizing nearly €900,000, 443 computers, 238 mobile phones and multiple storage devices. Victims were lured via misleading ads and pressured by retention agents posing as investment advisors.

📢 The FTC reports Americans lost more than $2.1 billion to social media scams in 2025, an eightfold increase since 2020. Facebook accounted for the largest share of reported losses across most age groups, while WhatsApp and Instagram trailed. The agency warns scammers exploit hacked accounts, targeted posts, and paid ads to reach victims at scale. Meta removed millions of scam ads and accounts and rolled out new warnings and protections.

🔒 The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated Senator Kok An and 28 other individuals and entities accused of running a Cambodian network that orchestrated large-scale cryptocurrency fraud. Authorities say scammers operated from compounds embedded in casinos and commercial buildings, using romance lures and fake investment platforms to steal digital assets. The sanctions freeze US-linked assets and bar transactions by US persons to disrupt the network's financial and operational infrastructure.

🔒 Operation Atlantic, led by the UK's National Crime Agency with US and Canadian partners, froze $12m and disrupted multiple fraud networks after a week-long probe. The operation focused on approval phishing, a technique that tricks victims into granting full access to cryptocurrency wallets via fake alerts or popups. Investigators, supported by private-sector firms including Binance, Coinbase, Tether, and analytics vendors, identified over 20,000 compromised wallets across 30+ countries and contacted 3,000 victims. Authorities also disrupted more than 120 scam domains and flagged an additional $33m believed stolen in related crypto fraud.

🔒 An international law enforcement action led by the U.K.'s National Crime Agency, dubbed Operation Atlantic, identified over 20,000 victims of cryptocurrency fraud across Canada, the UK, and the US. The weeklong operation brought together the NCA, U.S. Secret Service, Ontario authorities and private-sector partners to share real-time intelligence and conduct coordinated victim outreach. Investigators froze more than $12 million in suspected criminal proceeds tied to approval phishing and traced over $45 million in stolen cryptocurrency, and they will continue analyzing intelligence to pursue further criminal activity.

⚠️Recovery fraud preys on people already defrauded, with criminals posing as recovery firms, regulators or law enforcement to charge upfront fees or collect bank and crypto details. Scammers often use 'sucker lists' to identify vulnerable victims and pressure them into untraceable payments or rushed decisions. Never pay fees in advance; verify claims independently and report incidents to the appropriate authorities.

🔒 Cambodia has enacted the Law on Combating Online Scams, effective immediately, imposing steep penalties for organisers of scam compounds. The law threatens ringleaders with 5–10 years imprisonment and fines up to $250,000, escalating to 10–20 years and larger fines where violence, forced labour, or trafficking are involved. It also shields coerced victims from prosecution.

⚖️ Saheed Sunday Owolabi, 35, was sentenced to 15 years in a U.S. federal prison after a jury convicted him of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors described how he posed as women online to cultivate romantic relationships, then persuaded victims to transfer funds and provided bank accounts used to launder proceeds—more than $1.5 million sent to Nigeria. Chat logs showing he had attempted to swindle another fraudster undermined his claim of being a mere middleman, and images recovered from his phone displayed luxury purchases made with stolen funds.

🚫 The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has sanctioned Xinbi, a Chinese-language marketplace accused of selling stolen personal data and satellite internet equipment to Southeast Asian scam networks and assisting North Korean actors with cryptocurrency laundering. Chainalysis links Xinbi to over $19.9 billion in transactions from 2021–2025. The measures also target #8 Park and operator Legend Innovation Co, aiming to sever Xinbi from legitimate crypto services and disrupt payments to scam centers.

🔍 Flare's analysis of fraud-focused communities reveals an organized underground market selling refund methods, tutorials, and operational services that exploit retailer and payment-provider workflows. Actors advertise step-by-step techniques—such as refund without return, chargeback abuse, goods swapping, and empty-box returns—while offering operators on commission. High-volume targets include Amazon, PayPal, Apple, and major retailers; tutorials typically sell for $50–$300. Researchers urge stronger intelligence sharing, refined controls, and continuous monitoring to close operational gaps.

🔒 Meta is rolling out new anti-scam protections across its platforms, combining user-facing warnings and backend detection to stop fraud before users interact. WhatsApp will alert users to suspicious device-linking requests, while Facebook is testing flags for dubious friend requests and Messenger is expanding anti-scam reviews. Meta also deployed AI to detect impersonation, spoofed brands, and deceptive links, and reports removing over 159 million scam ads and taking down 10.9 million accounts in 2025.

🚨Meta on Wednesday said it disabled over 150,000 accounts linked to scam centers in Southeast Asia as part of a coordinated, multinational enforcement effort with authorities across Asia, Europe, North America and Oceania. The action follows a December 2025 pilot that removed 59,000 accounts, Pages and Groups and led to six arrest warrants. Meta also announced new protections: suspicious-account warnings on Facebook, WhatsApp device-link alerts for QR-based scams, expanded AI-assisted scam detection on Messenger, and plans to broaden advertiser verification.

🛡️ Operation Red Card 2.0, led by INTERPOL and law enforcement from 16 African nations between December 8, 2025 and January 30, 2026, targeted infrastructure and actors behind high-yield investment scams, mobile money fraud, and fraudulent loan apps. Authorities arrested 651 suspects, recovered over $4.3 million, confiscated 2,341 devices and disrupted 1,442 malicious IPs, domains and servers. The operation linked scams to more than $45 million in losses and identified 1,247 victims, underscoring the value of multinational cooperation against transnational cybercrime.

🔒 Kaspersky researchers have identified a surge in scams targeting fans of the Winter Olympics 2026 in Italy. Fraudsters exploit high demand for tickets and merchandise, using phishing sites that clone official vendors and fake online stores to steal payment and personal data. Bogus streaming services lure viewers with “free” or cheap access while requesting credit-card details or redirecting to ads and malware. Users should buy only through official channels, verify URLs, avoid unsolicited links, and deploy a robust security solution such as Kaspersky Premium to block phishing, dangerous sites, and card skimmers.

⚠️ Juniper Research says social media platforms collected nearly £3.8bn ($5.2bn) from malicious or scam adverts across 11 European markets in 2025, based on roughly 993 billion ad impressions. The Revolut-sponsored analysis found about 10% of impressions were linked to scams and estimates platforms took in £38bn overall from social advertising. The report warns impressions could reach 1.4 trillion by 2030, potentially increasing scam-linked revenue to about £8.4bn unless detection, enforcement and user education are strengthened. It urges greater transparency, manual advertiser checks and faster adaptability to evolving scams to protect user trust.

🔍 CTM360 reports a global uptick in fraudulent High‑Yield Investment Programs (HYIPs) that promise implausible, guaranteed returns. Their WebHunt telemetry identified 4,200+ HYIP sites and 485+ incidents in December 2025, showing persistent, scalable activity. Two dominant variants — crypto trading and forex/stock trading facades — use polished interfaces, fake performance and recycled templates. Scams spread via paid social ads, Telegram, WhatsApp and referral schemes; many sites use fake licenses and KYC delays to freeze withdrawals before vanishing.

🔍 Cybersecurity researchers have identified service providers that supply tools, infrastructure, and turnkey platforms to scale pig butchering (PBaaS) operations across Southeast Asia. Vendors such as Penguin Account Store and UWORK offer stolen identities, pre-registered accounts, SIMs, CRM panels, mobile apps, and payment processors, enabling mass victimization and rapid fund movement. These offerings dramatically lower technical barriers and empower fraud operations tied to human-trafficking-enabled scam compounds.

🔎 Elliptic's analysis shows Chinese-language darknet marketplaces on Telegram have expanded to unprecedented scale, despite Telegram's early‑2025 takedowns of two major sites. The current leading platforms, Tudou Guarantee and Xinbi Guarantee, are estimated to facilitate nearly $2 billion per month in money‑laundering and illicit commerce. They traffic in stolen data, scam infrastructure, fake investment sites, AI deepfake tools, and a wide range of illegal services that directly enable large-scale "pig butchering" romance and investment scams.

🛡️ HMRC has received over 135,500 scam reports since February 2025, including about 4,800 tied to its Self Assessment system, and warns scams will rise ahead of the January 31, 2026 filing deadline. Fraudsters impersonate HMRC via phone, email and text to pressure victims into paying fake bills, disclosing personal data or installing malware. HMRC says it shut 25,000 phishing sites and numbers in the last 10 months and urges people to protect, recognize and report suspicious contacts to phishing@hmrc.gov.uk.

🚨 European and Ukrainian authorities dismantled a large fraud ring operating call centers in Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kyiv, arresting 12 suspects and seizing vehicles, weapons, a polygraph machine, computers, cash, and forged IDs after 72 coordinated searches on December 9. The network, which employed about 100 people from across Europe, scammed over 400 victims and stole more than €10 million using impersonation, remote-access tools and in-person cash pickups. The multi-country operation was led by investigators from the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine with support from Eurojust.