Eighteen people were arrested in Ile-de-France, Nantes, Le Mans, Toulouse, Sens (Yonne), Orléans and Nice, one person in Belgium, gendarmerie and police added.
At the end of their police custody, fifteen of them were summoned to appear before the criminal court to stand trial on charges of accessing and maintaining a data system, fraud and money laundering in an organized gang, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office, without giving a date for the hearing.
The subpoena scam consists in sending e-mails to unspecified individuals on behalf of gendarmerie or police officers, judges or institutions such as Europol, accusing them of child pornography in particular by consulting illegal Internet websites.
Victims are threatened with legal action unless they pay a “fine”.
Investigators found that the scammed money was spent in France but more commonly sent to Ivory Coast and other African countries.
In early 2021, this phishing (or phishing) campaign swept the entire territory, prompting the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office, which specializes in cybercrime, to launch an investigation.
These investigations were entrusted to the police officers of the Central Unit for the Fight against Cybercrime (OCLCTIC), the gendarmes of the Research Department (SR) of Versailles, those of the ComCybergend and the Research Brigade of Nice with the support of the European Police Agency Europol.
blackmail
As of June 2022, there were 150,000 reports of this scam on the Pharos platform.
A year later, his damage is estimated at “at least 3.5 million euros,” OCLCTIC Commissioner Christophe Durand estimated with AFP.
Almost 400 people filed complaints.
“The amounts paid by the victims range from less than 5,000 euros to 150,000 or even 200,000 euros,” Colonel Thomas Andreu of the Versailles SR told AFP, noting that six people “possibly related to this scam” committed suicide had.
“One of the victims suffered double extortion. After an initial payment of 5,978 euros, the criminals demanded that he pay a further 7,480 euros. He felt helpless and trapped and killed himself,” the police and gendarmerie reported.
Six preliminary investigations were initiated to clarify the causes of death.
“We believed the fraud was driven by a central structure. In fact, it turned out to be several small teams, about ten, with no connection whatsoever between them,” continued Colonel Andreu.
“These small structures are pure opportunism,” added Commissioner Durand, stressing that the system is “cost-effective” for criminals, as is the “romance” scam, which involves feigning romantic feelings for a person contacted over the internet in order to to extort money from her.
The fraud with the false subpoenas has since caused “oil spills” in Europe, Mr. Durand continued, pointing to “Italy, Romania and Switzerland”. So much so, in October 2022, France opened a file with Eurojust, the European Union’s judicial cooperation agency.
The suspects are between 20 and 50 years old, while the average age of their victims is around 60 years. “Behind the profiles of the victims there is real human distress,” argued Mr. Durand.
Both Colonel Andreu and Commissioner Durand hailed the “perfect collaboration” between the services to achieve this action, which he hopes will warn the general public about these fraudulent emails.