An international police op took down a phone scam network

Recently, an international police operation has resulted in the apprehension of dozens of individuals, including the suspected boss of an organised crime operation that uses a phone scam to target elderly victims.

According to Europol, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency has arrested the alleged mastermind of the organised crime ring near the nation’s capital. At the same time, German and Polish officers searched several locations on the continent, confiscating mobile phones and other electronic devices for fraudulent activities. Moreover, the operation has also seized gold bars, coins, jewellery, and cash, which amounts to about $174,000.

The authorities arrested approximately 70 individuals throughout their investigation.

 

The phone scam has a couple of strategies that would allow its targets to provide sums of money immediately.

 

According to investigations, the phone scam works in two parts. The first is that the fraudsters will call an elderly target and pretend to be police officers. Next, they will inform their mark that one of their relatives had been responsible for an accident that resulted in a fake death of others.

The caller will then hand the phone to a second individual who screams hysterically into the device while desperately asking for help. The actors applied the strategy to shock the recipient of the call to pressure the elderly victim into giving money and avoid the detention of their fake relative.

The second part of the attack is that the scammers will send someone to collect the money directly from the target’s house. Europol noted that the person who commonly collects the money is a recruited money mule from an online job platform.

Europol revealed that hundreds of elderly victims suffered from this crime group, which resulted in the loss of more than $5 million. The authorities also claimed that such scams could result in irrecoverable funds. Unfortunately, the most impactful factor is these elderly victims could suffer from emotional distress and lose trust in legitimate authorities.

Experts have advised everyone to be vigilant of such modus and guide older people about these looming threats to avoid panic, confusion, and loss of funds.