A large-scale international operation, code-named ‘Operation HAEICHI-II’, coordinated by Interpol, has resulted in the arrests of 1,003 people linked to various cybercrimes, such as romance scams, investment fraud and money laundering associated with illegal online gambling.
The arrests were carried out fr om June to September 2021 in 20 countries, including Angola, Brunei, Cambodia, Colombia, China, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Korea (Rep. of), Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Romania, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Thailand, and Vietnam. As part of the operation, the police intercepted a total of nearly $27 million of illicit funds and froze 2,350 bank accounts linked to cybercriminal activities, Interpol said in a press release.
During the operation, the law enforcement agencies identified 10 new criminal modus operandi.
In one case, an unnamed Colombian prominent textiles company was defrauded of $8 million via a sophisticated business email compromise (BEC) scam, wh ere the cybercriminals posing as a the legal representative of the company ordered it to transfer over $16 million to two Chinese bank accounts. The company transferred half of the money before it noticed the fraud and contacted the police. Thanks to the use of the ARRP network and the international police cooperation over 94% of the money was intercepted in record time, Interpol said.
Another case includes a Slovenian firm being deceived into transferring $800,000 to mule accounts in China.
Interpol has also warned about emerging trends in online financial crime, one of which involves the use of a popular Netflix show 'Squid Game' as a lure in malware campaigns. In one case in Colombia, the police spotted trojan-infected apps based on Squid Game theme able to hack the user’s billing information and subscribe to paid ‘premium’ services without the user’s explicit approval.
“Online scams like those leveraging malicious apps evolve as quickly as the cultural trends they opportunistically exploit,” said Josй De Gracia, Assistant Director, Criminal Networks at INTERPOL. “Sharing information on emerging threats is vital to the ability of police to protect the victims of online financial crime. It also lets police know that no country is alone in this fight. Operation HAECHI-II shows that we can successfully strike back against this threat when we act together.”