At least 142 people were arrested during a joint operation led by France, Germany, Australia, Ukraine, the United States and Canada to take down a web page that offered phishing services to scammers who wanted to impersonate companies or trusted contacts of their victims.

The main administrator of the portal, which made profits of over 3.7 million euros in 16 months, has been arrested in the UK.

As announced on Thursday by the Eurojust agency, this platform is estimated to be behind a worldwide loss of over 115 million eurosalthough it has been inactive since last November 8, when the US and Ukrainian authorities managed to disconnect the server.

The site allowed scammers who registered and paid for its services to make anonymous calls or send recorded messages, depending on intercept one-time passwords and gain access to its victims’ confidential informationa cyber crime known as “spoofing” (identity theft).

web users he could impersonate an infinite number of entitiessuch as banks, retail companies and government institutions.

The president of Eurojust, Ladislav Hamran, recalled that the “cybercrime knows no borders” and underlined the importance of effective judicial cooperation between different jurisdictions at European and global level as “key to bringing criminals” to court.

“These arrests are a warning message to cybercriminals, who can no longer hide behind their perceived international anonymity,” added Europol Director Catherine de Bolle.

For his part, London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley noted: ‘The exploitation of technology by criminals is one of the greatest challenges facing law enforcement in the 21st century.’

“By removing tools and systems that allow fraudsters to deceive innocent people on a massive scale, this operation shows how determined we are to target corrupt individuals who attempt to exploit the most vulnerable.”

With information from EFE.