Police in Romania have announced that they have arrested 70 people, breaking up three separate gangs involved in organised cybercrime in the process.
The raids across the country followed an investigation by the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) which worked closely with the FBI in identifying over 800 victims of the gangs. Hundreds of officers were involved in the arrests, in collaboration with members of the US Secret Service based from the US Embassy in Bucharest.
DIICOT says that the raids were conducted in collaboration with the FBI and US Secret Service officers from the US Embassy in Bucharest.
From the sound of it, the gangs are alleged to have fished account details from legitimate eBay users, and then exploited those users’ good online reputation to sell fictional high-value goods.
DIICOT has provided the following (rather murky) YouTube video showing one of the raids:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1R8vKYemLc&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]It’s great to see more international co-operation in the fight against organised online crime, and the Romanian authorities should be congratulated for taking action against groups that impact internet users far beyond their country’s borders.
If you’re interested in finding out more about the arrests, check out Gary Warner’s excellent write-up on his blog: “CyberCrime & Doing Time”.
