FBI arrest 281 fraudsters in Turkey, Nigeria, Ghana, France, UK, Kenya, Japan, Italy, recovers $3.7m
United States authorities announced the arrest of 281 fraudsters in the US, Africa, Asia, and Europe in operation conducted over four months.
The suspects arrested include 167 people in Nigeria, 15 in Ghana, 18 in Turkey.
The authorities also recovered nearly $3.7 million from the suspects.
According to the US authorities, the suspects committed the acts by using business email compromise, (BEC) to exploit vulnerable individuals or businesses by impersonating or compromising an email account or computer network.
FBI arrest 281 fraudsters in Turkey, Nigeria, Ghana, France, UK, Kenya, Japan, Italy, recovers $3.7m
The US IRS revealed that the perpetrators stole over 250,000 identities and filed more than 10,000 fraudulent tax returns.
In arresting the suspects, FBI teamed up with both local and international law enforcement agency like the Metropolitan Police Service and Hertfordshire Constabulary of the UK, Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ghana Police Service (GPS) and Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO), Turkish National Police (TNP) Cyber Department, Direction Centrale de la Police aux Frontieres (PAF) of France, Squadra Mobile Di Caserta and Italian National Police, National Police Agency of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TPMD), Royal Malaysian Police, Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) of Kenya and the National Crime Agency (NCA), North Wales Police, in an investigation called operation reWired.
