Blow against cyber criminals

As part of an extensive investigation by the cantonal police and the public prosecutor's office, which has been ongoing for some time, the Dutch authorities arrested two people last Thursday and seized various data carriers. The arrested persons were subject to an international arrest warrant issued by the Public Prosecutor's Office II of the Canton of Zurich.

Real-Time Phishing

According to the media release, the alleged perpetrators are accused of so-called real-time phishing in the period from March 2019 until today by distributing a plausible-looking link via spam mails, which, when clicked, triggered a redirect to a completely fake entry page of an online banking portal of several Swiss banks. As soon as the perpetrators had accessed the bank account access data (credentials) entered by the deceived victims in this way, they immediately triggered payments to the accounts of money mules in order to unlawfully enrich themselves from the forwarded assets. The known amount of the crime is currently around 500,000 Swiss francs.

All data carriers were seized in Amsterdam and are now to be transmitted to Switzerland by way of international legal assistance, according to the press release. The public prosecutor's office II of the Canton of Zurich will also apply to the competent Federal Office of Justice to initiate the extradition of the alleged perpetrators. As always, the presumption of innocence applies until a final conviction.

The success of this internationally coordinated action against cybercriminals is based on the one hand on the close cooperation between the cantonal police and the public prosecutor's office (Cybercrime Competence Center), and on the other hand also on the support of the Dutch authorities and the active assistance of online banking specialists from various Swiss banks.

Source: Kapo Zurich / Public Prosecutor's Office