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European authorities dismantle major cybercrime gang

Xinhua, June 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

A joint European investigation effort led by Austrian authorities resulted in the dismantling of a Ukraine-based cybercrime gang, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BK) confirmed in Vienna on Thursday.

Six European countries were involved in the effort codenamed "Mozart" with the support of Europol and Eurojust. Their activities in Austria are traceable back to 2011, when public complaints emerged over the hacking of TAN security codes used for online banking, through trojan viruses such as "Spyeye," "ICE IX," and "Citadel," which the perpetrators continuously adapted in order to bypass the security measures of banks.

Money was then transferred to intermediary accounts, after which so-called "money mules" then transferred the funds onwards.

60 members of the gang have thus far either been arrested or identified, having carried out at least 200 crimes in Austria alone worth 1.2 million euros (1.3 million U.S. dollars) in damage, the BK said, with the worldwide total estimated to be many times that amount.

All major banks operating in Austria are believed to have been effected.

Following ongoing investigations over the years, the Austrian investigators increasingly caught on to the trail left by the primarily Ukraine-based criminals.

A number of house searches there on June 18 and 19 with the participation of BK officers and Europol led to numerous arrests, leading authorities to claim the gang has now been dismantled. Continued investigations are expected to continue for some months, however, as authorities sift through the evidence now at hand. Endit