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Romanian Police Detain around 70 Suspects in eBay Scams

During an investigation done jointly by the United States and Romania, the Romanian DIICOT (Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism) deputed more than 700 policemen across the country to bust a gang of fraudsters on eBay. Investigators, executing 101 raids and arrests, managed to bring together more than 70 suspects who were questioned regarding Internet frauds carried out through eBay accounts, as per the news published by Softpedia published on April 8, 2010.

Supposedly, the suspects belonged to three different gangs. They launched phishing attacks for the theft of login details belonging to eBay accountholders. Subsequently, they exploited those accounts for the sale of non-existent items.

So far, police have spotted about 800 victims who paid to buy those non-existent items. A few of the goods apparently sold were motorcycles, luxury cars, yachts, a small recreational airplane, laptops, jewelry, watches, IT gadgets and electronic components.

However, buyers worldwide lost an enormous $1 Million, following the wiring of their money for goods that they never got.

Reportedly, the scammers operated from the U.S, Canada, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Germany, France, Denmark, Italy and New Zealand. Police, during the raids, have hitherto retrieved just a tiny fraction of the undetermined sum of stolen cash.

According to the security experts, suspects from a number of countries exchanged phone cards, cars and homes amongst themselves.

800 Internet users, who were victimized, spread across North America, Europe and Oceania. They lodged complaints to get the scammers arrested. Consequently, the Secret Service and FBI conducted an investigation. The resultant evidences unsurprisingly took them to Eastern Europe where the percentage of online offense is the highest.

In addition to busting the Romanian-based cyber-criminals, 10 house raids were also conducted Prague, the Czech Republic, aiming at the same gang members. Nevertheless, authorities detained 31 alleged offenders in Bucharest, while they caught the remaining in other cities.

A certain Romanian news article revealed that one of the individuals arrested was a student, aged 22, from the University of Transylvania (Brasov), following a police search at the suspect's dormitory. Associated arrests too happened in the Czech Republic, as per the news published by Wired on April 7, 2010.

Related article: Romanian Hacker Haunting ebay

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