Eight people arrested and £30k of suspected criminal cash and drugs seized after cyber crime warrants
Police have arrested eight people and recovered around £30,000 of suspected criminal cash and drugs after executing six warrants in the West Midlands this week.
West Midlands Police have joined an international operation to bring down one of the biggest online marketplaces selling stolen credentials.
It led to them executing one warrant in Smethwick, one in Coventry, and four in Birmingham over the last two days.
Consequently, police arrested six men and two women - aged between 21 and 43 - on suspicion of fraud. £30,000 of suspected criminal cash and drugs as well as computers were recovered from these warrants.
The force's Regional Cyber Crime team – part of West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) - carried out a series of warrants as part of activity against the worldwide Genesis Market - a go to service for criminals looking to infiltrate others lives by stealing their identities and cash.
Law enforcement agencies across 17 countries this week took action to help bring down the Genesis Market which hosted approximately 80 million credentials and digital fingerprints stolen from over two million people.
The major international operation was co-ordinated via the FBI, Dutch National Police and National Crime Agency (NCA) and has led to the Genesis Market - one of the most significant global platforms - being taken offline.
It traded in digital identities, selling ‘bots’ that contained information harvested from victim devices which had been infected using malicious attacks. These attacks were conducted against both members of the public and companies operating in a variety of sectors.
The bots would give criminals access to all the data pertaining to an individual identity, such as cookies, saved logins and autofill form data. This information was collected in real time, meaning the buyers would be notified of any change of passwords.
The most expensive bots would contain financial information, which would allow access to online banking accounts. Criminals could use this access to steal from victims, either by directly moving money out of an account, or using the credentials to pay for goods and services for their own benefit.
They may also have used the victim account in the process of laundering the profits of other criminal activity – also known as money muling.
Genesis Market was unique in that it provided users with a custom browser, which would mimic that of their victim. This allowed the criminals to essentially masquerade as the victim, making it look like they were accessing their accounts from the usual location and operating system, so not triggering security measures.
It’s likely that criminals would use information about a victim they had obtained from their various accounts, such as interests, names of friends and family, and personal circumstance, to socially engineer them for further offences.
This process sees a fraudster using the information to build trust with a victim, then manipulating them into handing over money voluntarily, such as via romance or investment frauds.
You can check whether your data has been compromised and accessed by criminals on Genesis Market by visiting politie.nl/checkyourhack and inputting your email address.
Those who have been affected are encouraged to report this, either to Action Fraud or the police.
Some tips on protecting devices and online accounts can be accessed on the NCA website: bit.ly/GenesisMarket.
