Europol has announced the disruption of its sophisticated Cybercrime-as-a-Service (CaaS) platform. The agency said Friday’s operation damaged the platform that operates the SIM farm, allowing the set to carry out crimes ranging from phishing to investment fraud.
The operation, dubbed Operation SIMCARTEL, saw 26 strategic searches carried out by coordinated law enforcement operations, the agency said in a statement. Europol said the operation resulted in the arrest of seven suspects and the seizure of 1,200 SIM box devices containing more than 40,000 active SIM cards.
Five of the suspects detained were Latvian nationals. Latvian police said in a statement that the platform is associated with anonymous communications and payments and affects more than 3,200 people in each country.
Europol arrests suspect for subverting CaaS platform
Europol also claimed to have dismantled five servers involved in the operation and taken over two websites used to promote the service, gogetsms(.)com and apisim(.)com. Since then, a banner has been posted on the website indicating that it has been seized by authorities. Four luxury cars were also seized and the suspect’s bank accounts worth 431,000 euros ($502,000) and cryptocurrency accounts worth 266,000 euros ($310,000) were frozen by Europol.
The operation consisted of cooperation between law enforcement agencies from countries such as Austria, Latvia, Finland and Estonia, as well as Europol and Eurojust.
Europol said in a statement that the criminal network was involved in more than 1,700 separate cyber fraud cases in Austria and 1,500 in Latvia. The agency also claimed that the victims had lost a cumulative total of 4.5 million euros ($5.25 million) and 420,000 euros ($489,000) in both countries, respectively, to services and operations in both countries.
“Criminal networks and their infrastructure are technologically highly sophisticated, allowing perpetrators around the world to utilize this SIM box service to carry out a wide range of telecommunications-related cybercrimes and other crimes,” the agency said.
The network provided registered phone numbers to people in more than 80 countries for use in criminal activities, including setting up fake social media accounts on various platforms to hide users’ locations and true identities.
Law enforcement details scale of operation
Europol claimed that the service allows the creation of a total of more than 49 million accounts online. These accounts are used to run large-scale phishing campaigns and trick victims into investing in fake or fake trading schemes.
Another type of scam involved contacting people and pretending to be their relatives. They claim to have a new number and always ask you to transfer 4-digit funds to the new number to quickly resolve your emergency situation.
Among the crimes facilitated by the platform were extortion, migrant smuggling, and distribution of child sexual abuse material.
GoGetSMS was described as a platform where people could obtain “fast and secure temporary phone numbers,” according to a snapshot from the Internet Archive. The platform promises potential customers up to 10 million numbers to choose from and said they can receive verification from over 160 online servers.
The GoGetSMS website also offers users the ability to monetize their existing SIM card using specialized software by turning it into a powerful asset and generating passive income. In this way, users can earn money for each SMS message sent. Users have also complained of being scammed by the platform. “I tried many times and it was a waste of time and money. Support is completely unresponsive. No help, no refunds, nothing,” a user said on Trustpilot.
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