European police dismantles €50 million crypto investment fraud ring
Phong Xuan
Austrian and Albanian authorities dismantled a criminal ring accused of running a large-scale cryptocurrency investment fraud operation that caused estimated losses of over €50 million ($58.5 million) to victims worldwide.
The joint action, which started in June 2023 and was supported by Europol and Eurojust, led to the arrest of 10 suspects and searches of three call centers and nine private residences on April 17. During the action, law enforcement officers seized €891,735 in cash, 443 computers, 238 mobile phones, 6 laptops, and various data storage devices for forensic examination.
The fraud ring operated like a legitimate business, employing up to 450 people across departments, including customer acquisition, retention, finance, IT, and human resources. As the Europol explained in a Wednesday press release, team leaders supervised daily activities, while call center managers coordinated and guided the team leaders and overall operations.
Operators worked in teams of six to eight, organized by language (including German, English, Italian, Greek, and Spanish), and received monthly salaries of approximately €800, plus performance-based commissions.
"The criminal network, allegedly operating several call centres in Tirana, Albania, is believed to have caused significant financial damage, totalling at least EUR 50 million," . "The call centres were professionally set up and organised, resembling legitimate business structures featuring a clear division of roles and hierarchical management."
Victims were lured to fake cryptocurrency investment platforms through ads on search engines and social media, where they were assigned so-called "retention agents" posing as professional brokers and investment advisors. These agents managed the victims' investment accounts, often used remote access software to gain control of their devices, and also tricked them into making additional deposits through psychological pressure.
However, their funds were never invested. Instead, they were channeled into an international money-laundering scheme that funneled the illicit funds into the criminal network's accounts.
Criminal call center in Tirana, Albania (Europol)
In a secondary scheme, the criminals reached out to the victims again, offered to recover their lost funds, and asked them to deposit €500 into cryptocurrency accounts as an entry fee, effectively defrauding them a second time.
The investigation began in Vienna in June 2023 and identified victims across Italy, Germany, Greece, Spain, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
This is the latest in a long list of similar criminal rings dismantled by European authorities in recent years, including the March 2022 shutdown of a that employed 200 "traders" who stole at least €3 million from victims each month.
Last year, police also linked to losses of millions of euros and controlled by a criminal organization involved in online investment fraud (also known as 'pig butchering' cryptocurrency scams). European police also in May that were linked to thousands of daily scam calls.
More recently, in July, Spanish police dismantled a massive crypto investment fraud ring that ($540 million) stolen from more than 5,000 victims worldwide, one week before that caused cumulative damages exceeding €10 million ($11.8 million).
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