FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office said on Tuesday it had conducted an internationally coordinated action against alleged fraud and money laundering networks that compromised German payment service providers and racked up damages of hundreds of millions of euros. They said multiple people were arrested and searches occurred in Germany, Italy, Canada, Luxembourg, the […]
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German police conduct international crackdown on suspected fraud, money-laundering networks
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FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office said on Tuesday it had conducted an internationally coordinated action against alleged fraud and money laundering networks that compromised German payment service providers and racked up damages of hundreds of millions of euros.
They said multiple people were arrested and searches occurred in Germany, Italy, Canada, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, the U.S. and Cyprus.
The suspects are accused of using credit card details belonging to victims from 193 countries, the authorities said.
“There is also suspicion that the defendants compromised four major German payment service providers in order to process payments,” the BKA said.
Damages are estimated to be “in the mid-three-digit million (euros) range”.
Authorities are expected to provide further details at a press conference on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Tom Sims; Editing by Nia Williams and Paul Simao)