Global Credit Card Fraud Bust Sees 24 Arrested

The FBI has announced the arrest of 24 people after an undercover operation broke up a “carding” fraud network.

The arrests, including six in the UK, came after the FBI set up its own fake forum called “Carder Profit”, also known as the “UC Site”. From this it found out who was involved in stealing credit card details and other user data, watching over discussions and even private messages.

IP addresses of UC Site users were gathered, whilst breaches at multiple organisations were discovered. By enabling those bodies to take responsive and protective measures, the FBI believes it prevented potential economic losses of over $205 million, notified credit card providers of over 411,000 compromised credit and debit cards and informed 47 companies, government bodies and educational institutions of a breach of their networks.

Worldwide effort

Along with the six arrests in the UK, six were apprehended in countries across Europe, one in Japan and 11 in the US. Another two minors, whose names were not made public, were arrested by local authorities in Long Beach and Sacramento, California.

“The allegations unsealed today chronicle a breathtaking spectrum of cyber schemes and scams. As described in the charging documents, individuals sold credit cards by the thousands and took the private information of untold numbers of people,” said Manhattan US attorney Preet Bharara.

“As alleged, the defendants casually offered every stripe of malware and virus to fellow fraudsters, even including software enabling cyber voyeurs to hijack an unsuspecting consumer’s personal computer camera.  To expose and prosecute individuals like the alleged cyber-criminals charged today will continue to require exactly the kind of coordinated response and international cooperation that made today’s arrests possible.”

There have been a number of arrests in the cybercrime world this month. The cybercrime division of the Russian police arrested a 22-year-old on Friday, who was allegedly responsible for stealing 150 million rubles (£2.9m) from online banking users.

Earlier in June, six were arrested in Tokyo for allegedly running a scam involving Android malware that promised porn yet delivered blackmailing malware.

Meanwhile, this week saw members of the LulzSec hacktivist group, including teenagers Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis, pleading guilty to a number of charges in court.

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