100 held in blitz on cybercrooks
BRITAIN’S biggest anti-fraud operation has led to the arrests of more than 100 cyber crooks suspected of fleecing victims out of millions of pounds.
They include the alleged criminal mastermind who ran a website called is poof used by fraudsters around the world.
The east Londoner is said to have made £3.2million from the site before it was shut down in September.
Yesterday, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley hailed the global probe as Scotland Yard prepared to contact 70,000 is poof victims.
Police have made more than 120 arrests in Britain over the past weeks, mostly in London.
Suspects have also been detained in Holland, Australia, France and Ireland. More arrests are expected.
The conmen are suspected of tricking unsuspecting victims out of at least £48million by posing as officials from banks.The real figure is likely to be much higher with at least 200,000 victims around the world. Ironically, the crooks panicked account holders into disclosing confidential personal data by claiming they were they being targeted by fraudsters.
Victims have lost an average of £10,000 but one Briton was tricked out of £3million. Police say 10 million fraudulent calls were made using is poof technology, 40 per cent in the United States and 35 per cent in Britain.
Is poof was created in December 2020 and at its peak had 59,000 users. Criminals bought software using the crypto-currency Bitcoin and were charged between £150 and £5,000. Sir Mark said: “What we are doing here is trying to industrialise our response to the organised criminals.” Alleged is poof site administrator Teejay Fletcher, 35, is facing criminal charges.