Category: Fraud

The Taipei District Prosecutors Office announced Wednesday that it has indicted 62 individuals and 13 companies and seized more than $170 million in assets linked to Prince Group, heightening global action against the Cambodia-based conglomerate accused of running extensive online fraud operations. Included among the three principal defendants in the Taiwanese charges is Chen Zhi, the chairman of Prince Group who was extradited from Cambodia to Beijing earlier this year Chen Zhi’s legal representatives did not respond to a request for comment before publication. The Prince Group has said allegations made by U.S. and U.K. authorities are “baseless and appear…

In a sign that prosecutors in Germany’s Bamberg region are ramping up efforts to fight cybercrime, a court has begun hearing its second case involving a person accused of providing software allegedly designed to facilitate fake investment scams. While legal action has most often targeted people running cyberfraud operations, Bavaria’s Bamberg Regional Court this month began another trial of someone who ran a company that allegedly enabled scammers. Opening arguments began on March 2 in the trial of a man identified only as “Shay B.” To protect privacy, full names are typically not disclosed to media in German trials. He…

The Isle of Man has brought in new sanctions as part of an international crackdown on a criminal network linked to large-scale online fraud and human trafficking, the government has said.The Treasury said measures were in line with the UK and formed part of a wider operation involving the US and other international agencies.It said the sanctions aimed to target individuals and organisations linked to purpose-built “scam compounds” in south east Asia, where trafficked people were forced to carry out online fraud.Home Affairs Minister Jane Poole-Wilson said: “Working with our international partners is essential in tackling serious criminal groups.”She said:…

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) on Wednesday arrested six people and searched seven sites in an operation conducted as it announced a bribery and fraud investigation into the former management of Home REIT, a UK-listed social housing company. The suspected wrongdoing is valued at about 300 million pounds (nearly $404 million). Investigators, supported by the National Crime Agency, carried out searches at homes in Altrincham, Maidenhead and London, and a commercial site in Manchester. Italy’s Guardia di Finanza also searched a property in Venice as part of the inquiry. Home REIT, which listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2020,…

Cambodia is a global epicenter for scam centers, home to one of the biggest synthetic drug labs ever detected, and its citizens have been involved in an array of Southeast Asia’s most infamous — and lucrative — transnational crimes. Meanwhile, “corruption and official complicity” enables “endemic” human trafficking involving tens of thousands of victims, according to the U.S. State Department. Cambodia’s government, which did not respond to questions from OCCRP, has launched a crackdown on scam factories and says it has made thousands of arrests. It also signed agreements to strengthen anti-money laundering measures last year. Even so, international observers…

You get a call from your bank and the informed voice asks to you to confirm the personal details they have on file, which you do. You are then asked whether you bought something at an electrical retailer recently for £120 and spent £235 in Birmingham, but neither transaction rings true. The caller tells you they have blocked the payments but they must now secure your account, and say they will send you a notification to approve, or a code to pass on to them. You feel under pressure to protect your money, so you do what is asked. Unfortunately,…

Authorities in Europe and Israel have targeted companies and suspects behind fraudulent social media advertising campaigns as part of a crackdown on a massive cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering operation, which allegedly scammed thousands of victims with fake online investment schemes. Coordinated actions by law enforcement in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, and Israel in November led to two arrests and other suspects questioned, Europol said Thursday. The European Union law enforcement agency said it was the second phase of an operation that led to nine arrests in October across Cyprus, Germany, and Spain connected with the laundering of illicit funds generated…

Ukraine’s government has moved to sanction businessman Timur Mindich, a close associate and business partner of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, amid a widening corruption probe that has already ensnared several senior officials. The decision was announced Wednesday, a day after Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) said it had dismantled a high-level criminal organization accused of siphoning large sums from the country’s state-owned nuclear energy operator, Energoatom, through an elaborate kickback and money-laundering scheme. NABU said the 15-month investigation, codenamed Midas, uncovered a group of so-called “shadow managers” who allegedly infiltrated Energoatom to systematically extort kickbacks from contractors and laundered an estimated…

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) on Wednesday said it uncovered the first multimillion-euro VAT fraud in Croatia, involving 78 million euros ($90.27 million) in unpaid tax, highlighting cross-border coordination to disrupt large-scale tax evasion in the EU. The investigation targeted a criminal group trading in electronics and hygiene products, resulting in arrests and asset seizures in both Croatia and Italy. In Croatia, six suspects were arrested, with pre-trial detention requested for five, and authorities froze two properties and eight vehicles worth around 650,000 euros ($752,240). In Italy, the Court of Naples froze 33 million euros ($38.19 million) in assets…

Ukrainian anti-corruption prosecutors have sent to court a large-scale criminal case against officials of the Chernivtsi Customs Office accused of running a “grey import” scheme that cost the state nearly 290 million hryvnias (about $7 million). The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) said they completed the investigation into what they described as a criminal organization embedded in the customs authority. Investigators allege the group manipulated import duties through fraudulent declarations, allowing high-value goods to enter Ukraine at artificially low rates. The organization allegedly included both current and former customs officers, among them…

At the request of the Spanish and Portuguese authorities, Eurojust has coordinated a major operation across Europe to halt an elaborate investment fraud with cryptocurrencies. During an action day, five suspects were arrested, including the alleged main perpetrator behind the scam. Via an online investment platform, he defrauded over a hundred victims in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, among others, of at least EUR 100 million. During the joint action day, five places were searched in both Spain and Portugal, as well as in Italy, Romania and Bulgaria, where bank accounts and other financial assets were also frozen. The alleged…

Fraud losses in the global banking sector are expected to soar to $58.3 billion by 2030, according to a new report by U.K.-based consultancy Juniper Research. The study, Fraud Detection & Prevention in Banking Market 2025–2030, projects a 153 percent jump from an estimated $23 billion in 2025, underscoring the growing risks financial institutions face from evolving fraud schemes. One of the biggest threats identified is synthetic identity fraud—when criminals create fake personas by blending stolen, real and fabricated details. These identities can pass standard checks because they include partial authentic data, making them difficult to detect. The report said…

British authorities have struck off 11,500 firms from the Companies House register following a coordinated campaign to dismantle corporate entities used to enable fraud and money laundering in the U.K. and abroad. The crackdown, led by the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC), is part of a broader government effort to prevent the abuse of U.K. corporate structures, which officials estimate are involved in laundering more than £100 billion ($134 billion) annually. The removed companies failed to meet Registered Office requirements under the Companies Act 2006. Many were linked to high-risk incorporation addresses and corporate formation agents suspected of facilitating criminal…

A UK crackdown targets Balkan gangsters who used fraudulent Bosnian documents—just weeks after Bosnian journalists revealed the scale of the identity theft scheme. The move comes after Bosnia’s Center for Investigative Journalism (CIN) exposed how international fugitives obtained genuine Bosnian passports using stolen identities. The list of individuals and firms the U.K. Foreign Office sanctioned on Wednesday includes a range of targets, from a small boat supplier in Asia to informal Hawala money movers in the Middle East, and gang leaders based in North Africa. Among them are individuals accused of supplying fake passports and forged documents to Balkan gangs,…

talian authorities arrested 12 people and seized more than 9.6 million euros ($10.9 million) in assets as part of a sweeping investigation into an alleged fraud scheme targeting European Union agricultural subsidies, officials said Wednesday. At the request of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Naples, the Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza) in Caserta carried out the arrests under an order from a judge at the Court of Salerno. The case centers on a suspected criminal network that allegedly defrauded the EU of more than 12.5 million euros ($14.2 million) in agricultural funds between 2018 and 2022. Prosecutors say…

The FCA has secured confiscation orders of £305,284 against Raheel Mirza, Cameron Vickers and Opeyemi Solaja for their roles in an investment fraud. This amounts to all their remaining assets. The confiscation proceedings for Reuben Akpojaro have been adjourned to a later date. The money will be returned to investors at the earliest opportunity. Failure to pay can lead to imprisonment. Between June 2016 and January 2020, the defendants cold called people to convince them to invest in a shell company. They then claimed to trade their client’s money in binary options (a type of fixed odds financial betting) when…

An organised criminal group (OCG) operating globally has defrauded more than 100 victims of over EUR 3 million through a fake online investment platform. Cooperation between German, Cypriot, Albanian, British and Israeli investigators, supported by Eurojust and Europol, led to the dismantling of the criminal group and the arrest of a suspect in Cyprus.Using the method of cyber trading, the group was able to make considerable profits and defraud victims of their substantial savings. The criminals created a fake online trading platform that promised large profits in a short period of time. After initially transferring modest sums of money to…

Fraud costing U.S. government hundreds of billions a year as crime rings use stolen identities It’s the most popular f-word in Washington: fraud. And DOGE — the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency — has been tearing through federal agencies on the hunt for it. But is DOGE looking in the right places? The fraud we’ll tell you about tonight is complex, pervasive and being carried out by transnational criminal organizations often using stolen identities to target U.S. taxpayers – costing the government hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Linda Miller: To be honest, Elon Musk coming out and…

Managing Director David Geale reflects on what we have seen since implementation of the world leading reimbursement requirements to protect users. Our new authorised push payment (APP) scams reimbursement requirement went live on 7 October 2024. It gave stronger protections to victims of APP scams in a way no other country had done before. We’re now just over seven months in and we’re looking back at how payment service providers (PSPs) implemented the policy, and the impact it’s had on people so far. As with any new policy, implementation can be challenging as firms train staff and roll out the…

Wine fraudster Cédric Flaction once drove showy cars including two Aston Martins, two Ferraris, two Porsches, an Audi and a BMW. The Swiss winemaker, however, has become better known for being the first vigneron in the Valais, Switzerland’s biggest wine region, to be convicted of wine fraud and forgery. On September 2, 2024, a court in Sion sentenced Flaction to three-and-a-half years’ imprisonment, and ordered him to pay 1.94 million Swiss francs ($2.34 million) in compensation costs. Flaction is alleged to have bought 750,000 liters of Spanish bulk wine and 105,000 liters of Pinot Noir from Schaffhausen – a less-prestigious…

Indian authorities have arrested Subodh Kumar Goel, the former Chairman and Managing Director of UCO Bank, in connection with major money laundering and bank fraud worth some $726 million. The case concerns loans he allegedly approved to Concast Steel & Power Ltd. (CSPL) during his tenure. Investigators say the funds were diverted through shell companies and front entities by the borrowers and in exchange, Goel allegedly received large illegal payments. According to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Goel was paid in cash, real estate, luxury items, and hotel stays. These benefits were routed through family members and dummy companies to hide…

A Cypriot parliamentary committee is scheduled to discuss a company owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, which shut down after being hit by $18.5-million in taxes related to a fraudulent superyacht-rental scheme. Citing a January investigation by OCCRP and its Cypriot member center, CIReN, Parliamentarian Alexandra Attalides wrote a letter asking the Committee on Ethics to look into whether the tax bill was paid. “In the event that this has not happened,” she asked the parliamentary committee to seek information on “what actions the competent authority took before the dissolution of the company, in order to ensure the repayment of…

German authorities have convicted three men in a massive tax fraud scheme involving internet-based phone services, in a case that European prosecutors say cost taxpayers an estimated 100 million euros ($113.9 million). The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) said Monday that its office in Munich helped secure the convictions, which mark a significant breakthrough in one of Europe’s most complex cases of so-called VAT carousel fraud. The scheme was run by a criminal group code-named “Cuba” and centered around Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)—technology that allows people to make phone calls over the internet instead of traditional telephone networks. Investigators…

Transnational organized crime in Southeast Asia has reached unprecedented levels, driven by a surge in large-scale cyber scam operations run by complex criminal networks, according to a new report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The report describes the rise of “sophisticated transnational syndicates” that have built vast cybercrime centers powered by interconnected networks of money launderers, human traffickers, data brokers and other illicit service providers. These actors have helped turn Asian criminal syndicates into global leaders in cyber fraud, underground banking and money laundering, the UNODC said. Their success is credited to their ability to…

433 people have been arrested in a UK-wide campaign against fraud, coordinated by the National Economic Crime Centre and City of London Police. The activity, which was the fourth iteration of the multi-agency Operation Henhouse, ran across February 2025 and resulted in: 433 arrests156 voluntary interviews471 cease and desist noticesaccount freezing orders against £4mseizures of cash and assets worth £7.5m Fraud is the most prevalent crime in the UK, causing victims long-lasting emotional and psychological harm as well as financial loss. It accounts for approximately 41% of all crime reports, and costs an estimated £6.8bn each year in England and…

French-Polish arms dealer Pierre Konrad Dadak, previously exposed for fraudulent arms schemes, has been indicted in the U.S. for allegedly running a luxury goods scam and extortion scheme, using stolen identities to fund his lavish lifestyle. Pierre Konrad Dadak, 48, was indicted by a grand jury in New York’s Southern District for an alleged scheme in 2021 and 2022 that saw him impersonate an unnamed luxury goods retailer, tricking customers to send him money into a bank account that he opened using a stolen identity. He allegedly spent the proceeds on himself, including a diamond-encrusted watch and a vintage 1960s-era…

As the newly appointed head of the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED), I am eager to continue our strong partnership with the ABI and its members. By working together, we will advance our strategic priorities of enforcement, disruption, protection and prevention. IFED tackles all forms of insurance fraud, including motor, commercial and public liability. We tackle threats such as illegal insurance intermediaries, also known as ghost brokers. We are committed to bringing organised criminal groups and opportunistic fraudsters to justice. Achieving these goals relies on strong collaboration and partnership with the insurance industry. IFED serves as…