Met unplugs online shop for scam software
THE Metropolitan Police has smashed a global online fraud shop selling tools used by criminals to carry out phone scams on hundreds of thousands of victims.
Detectives disabled the ispoof website as part of the biggest anti-fraud operation ever mounted in the UK.
Teejai Fletcher, 34, who lived in a flat in London’s Docklands, has been accused of setting up the subscription service. He is due to appear at Southwark Crown Court on Dec 6.
The illegal site sold software used to trick customers into believing they were being called by their bank, in order to gain access to their accounts.
The average loss suffered is estimated at £10,000, but one person is known to have had £3million stolen. The total worldwide is estimated at hundreds of millions.
ispoof was launched in Dec 2020 and had almost 60,000 criminal users, who would pay up to £5,000 a month in Bitcoin to access the software tools.
In the year to Aug 2022, 10million calls were made globally via ispoof, with around 3.5million in the UK.
Police have arrested 120 suspected scammers around the UK, 103 of them in London. Other arrests are taking place across the world.
Scotland Yard is appealing for victims to come forward and detectives are preparing to send texts to 70,000 people whose phone numbers were used by scammers.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner said it was the biggest fraud operation ever in the UK. He said: “This operation is about getting to
those who create the industrialisation of fraud”
Det Supt Helen Rance, who leads on cyber crime for the Met, said: “Our message to criminals who have used this website is we have your details and are working hard to locate you, regardless of where you are.”
Mr Fletcher is charged with making or supplying articles for use in fraud, participating in activities of an organised crime group and proceeds of crime offences.