A year-long international investigation concluded in the last few weeks with 700 police in Romania launching raids and taking into custody 70 people from three gangs. Those arrested were part of a four-year long wave of Internet auction fraud that victimized 800 people and netted over $1 million (US).
Yesterday Romanian Police released information on the raids which were organized by prosecutors at the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism. The police served 101 warrants in 12 Romanian cities.
The suspects are charged with incidents in which money was stolen from victims in Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.
The FBI and Secret Service from the U.S. assisted in the investigations, they said.
Last month FBI Director Robert Mueller said in a speech at the RSA conference that his agency had worked with the Romanian National Police to arrest more than 100 Romanian suspects in the past 18 months.
The auction fraud included phony sales of electronics equipment, luxury cars, airplanes, motorcycles and laptop computers as well as fake gold and platinum Rolex watches.
Gary Warner’s blog “CyberCrime and Doing Time” has great coverage including links to videos and Romanian-language sites.
Tom Kelchner