Authorities in Europe have disrupted a cybercrime-as-a-service (CaaS) operation specialising in setting up fake accounts used in phishing, smishing and fraud.
Authorities from Austria, Estonia, Finland and Latvia, working with Europol and Eurojust, carried out 26 searches, seven arrests and seized 1,200 SIM box devices containing 40,000 active SIM cards as part of Operation SIMCARTEL.
In addition to the SIM box devices, the authorities seized four "luxury" vehicles and froze €431,000 in suspects' bank accounts, as well as €266,000 in crypto wallets.
The teams also dismantled five servers and took down two websites promoting the operation's services, which now display a seizure banner.
Europol says the criminal network running the "highly sophisticated" infrastructure are responsible for more than 1,700 cyber fraud cases in Austria and 1,500 in Latvia. Attributable losses reached €4.5 million and €420,000 in the two countries, respectively.
"The criminal network and its infrastructure were technically highly sophisticated and enabled perpetrators around the world to use this SIM-box service to conduct a wide range of telecommunications-related cybercrimes, as well as other crimes.
"The online service created by the criminal network offered telephone numbers registered to people from over 80 countries for use in criminal activities. It allowed perpetrators to set up fake accounts for social media and communication platforms, which were subsequently used in cybercrimes while obscuring the perpetrators' true identity and location."
Customers primarily used these phone numbers to set up fake online accounts, more than 49 million of which have been traced back to the operation.
As well as phishing and smishing attacks, the network has been used in serious criminal activities such as extortion, migrant smuggling, and the distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
There are also many records of financial fraud, which include fraud on online marketplaces; daughter/son scams (convincing parents that the fraudster is an offspring); investment fraud; and fake shop or bank websites.