Europol has supported European and Latin American authorities in dismantling an international criminal network engaged in unlocking stolen or lost mobile phones through a phishing platform. 

Investigators reported 483 000 victims worldwide, who had attempted to regain access to their phones and been phished in the process. The victims are mainly Spanish-speaking nationals from European, North American and South American countries.

The successful operation took place thanks to international cooperation between law enforcement and judiciary authorities from Spain, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

The action week took place between 10 and 17 September and resulted in 17 arrests, 28 searches and 921 items seized, mainly mobile phones but also other electronic devices, vehicles and weapons.

A complex criminal web

The administrator of the phishing platform, an Argentinian national, was arrested during the large-scale law enforcement operation. He had been developing and running phishing services since 2018. On this occasion, he had been offering a phishing-as-a-service platform for unlocking mobile phones for the last 5 years.

The criminal sold access to his website and charged extra costs for phishing, SMS, emails or call performing. Criminal users of the platform –or “unlockers”– provided phone unlocking services to other criminals in possession of stolen phones.

Investigators identified more than 2 000 unlockers who had been registered in the phishing platform over the years. The investigation revealed that the criminal network had unlocked over 1.2 million mobile phones.

Europol’s role

For the first time, Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) coordinated an international operation together with the Specialised Cybercrime Centre of Ameripol, the Police Community of the Americas.

The action week was the result of a long-run investigation starting in 2022. After receiving information from a private company (Group-IB), Europol provided the affected countries with dedicated packages regarding the case. After months of investigation, the countries managed to identify most of the victims and took action against the criminal network.

During the investigation, Europol coordinated the authorities involved in the case and provided them with analytical support. An expert from Europol was deployed to Argentina and Spain to provide their expertise in the field during the action week.