International law enforcement agents arrested 11 individuals for their alleged involvement in a organized crime group, whose illegal activities included carding operations.
The police effort, dubbed “Operation Echo,” resulted in arrests that occurred last Tuesday, according to a release by EU law enforcement agency Europol. The group was suspected of a number of crimes, including card fraud and drug trafficking.
Bulgarian and French police cooperated with Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and Eurojust to aid in the bust, which mainly occurred across three cities in Bulgaria, the release said. As part of the takedown, three production sites for skimming equipment were raided.
Criminals' primary method of operation was stealing financial data from ATMs across Europe, then using the harvested information to create counterfeit cards, in order to later withdraw large sums of money, Europol revealed.
