Italy arrests 26 for phishing operation
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(InfoWorld) - Italy has become the latest country to clamp down on phishing, with authorities there arresting 26 people for an alleged scam to swindle bank customers. According to a statement by one of those arrested, the scam involved sending fraudulent e-mails that appeared to come from Poste Italiane, the country's postal operator, which also offers bank accounts, insurance and loans, according to a news release (in Italian) from the Guardia di Finanza, which handles financial crimes. The e-mails urged victims to hand over sensitive financial information, which was then used to draw money from their accounts, the finance authority said. Eighteen of those arrested are Italian citizens, with the remainder from Eastern European countries. Phishing scamsÂ are generally difficult to trace, since the fraudulent e-mails are often sent from computers that have been hacked. Those computers may also be in different countries than the hackers and the victims. But fraud management officials from Poste Italiane and the finance authority monitored transaction papers used to empty the accounts, initially in the Milan area and then throughout the country, they said. Countries around the world have been trying to clamp down on phishing as the number of Web sites used to entrap victims continues to increase. Police in Japan made theirÂ first arrest for phishingÂ early last year. The person was accused of illegally obtaining IDs and passwords for Yahoo Auctions and using them to resell goods worth tens of thousands of dollars. At around the same time,Â authorities in Bulgaria arrestedÂ eight people for phishing scam that targeted users of Microsoft's MSN service. Phishing-related arrests have also been made in the United States. Â
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(InfoWorld) - Six men have been charged with orchestrating a phishing scheme that targeted AOL users, the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday. The men are accused of harvesting thousands of AOL e-mail addresses and then infecting victims' PCs with malicious software that would prevent them from logging on to AOL without entering their credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and other personal information. Under the scam, victims would receive fake e-mail greeting cards that would silently infect their computers with the log-on software, according to a grand jury indictment. Victims were also spammed with phoney e-mail messages that claimed to have come from AOL's billing department. "Due to a central server meltdown, your credit card information was lost," one such e-mail read, according to the indictment. "In order to enjoy your AOL experience and keep your account active, you must enter your credit card information within 24 hours." Some of the fake greeting cards claimed to come from Web sites such as Hallmark.com or BlueMountain.com, the indictment states. AOL users appear to have been the primary targets of the fraud, but others may also have been targeted, according to Tom Carson, a spokesman for the United States Attorney's office for the District of Connecticut. "The investigation is ongoing," he said. "I think we can say the bulk of those targeted were AOL users, but we can't say with 100 percent certainty that they were the only victims," he said. The accused are believed to have defrauded thousands of individuals, U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor said in a statement. "These are insidious crimes that wreak havoc on the lives of victims, and we will seek strict terms of imprisonment." The alleged scam was conducted over a two-year period, beginning in 2004, the U.S. Attorney said. Proceeds from the crime were used to purchase gaming consoles, laptop computers and gift cards, the indictment states. The men were actually indicted on fraud charges last week by a federal grand jury in New Haven, but the charges were not made public until Wednesday, when three of the men pleaded guilty. The three who have pleaded guilty face between two years and nine and a half years in prison, Carson said. They are Charlie Blount Jr., 22, of Branford, Connecticut, Richard D'Andrea, 22, of West Haven, Connecticut, and Thomas Taylor Jr., 20, also of West Haven. They are scheduled to be sentenced in mid-December. The three men awaiting arraignment are Michael Dolan, 22, of North Miami Beach, Florida, Keith Riedel, 20, of Winter Haven, Florida, and Daniel Mascia, 22, of West Haven. Dolan had previously been sentenced to two years of probation after pleading guilty to accessing a protected computer without authorization.
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Twenty-six US citizens accused of abducting terrorist suspect from Milan street in 2003.
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Italian police arrested Tuesday 41 people, including three police officials, in a massive anti-Mafia swoop.
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Law enforcement authorities on both sides of the Atlantic have arrested 28 people on suspicion of operating Web sites that were allegedly designed to steal, sell and forge credit cards and identification documents. -The Washington Post
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American and Italian authorities arrested dozens of people Thursday&#13;&#10;in a takedown of what they called a trans-Atlantic drug trafficking&#13;&#10;operation run by the Mafia
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Police in Spain have detained 76 people acrosss the country as part of what they described Sunday as their biggest-ever probe into Internet fraud.
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A US-led operation targeting ID fraud crooks has led to the arrest of 28 people across seven countries this week.
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Anti-Mafia judges have ordered the arrest of 52 people suspected of having links to extortion and money-laundering rackets in a southern region of Italy.
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The US Secret Service has arrested 28 people on charges stemming from an undercover investigation into cybercrime. Charges against the suspects include identity theft, computer fraud, credit-card fraud and consipracy.
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Grifters grabbed Spanish police arrested 76 people nationwide on Sunday in what is being touted as the country's biggest ever investigation into internet fraud.â¦
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A Milan judge on Friday ordered 26 Americans, most of them thought to be CIA agents, to stand trial with Italian spies for the kidnapping in 2003 of a terrorism suspect, who was flown to Egypt where he says he was tortured.
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Police make about 100 arrests in a major operation against mafia gangs in Italy.
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Il rapporto semestrale dell'azienda Symantec svela che i cyber criminalipreferiscono attaccare gli utenti singoli piuttosto che le grandi aziende                                            Sicurezza su internet, aumenta il phishing rischi maggiori per i computer di casa                                                                                      Le mail false che chiedono informazioni private sono aumentate dell'81%
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A man wanted in Italy for alleged terrorist offences has been arrested in north London, Scotland Yard says.
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Italian security services have arrested three Moroccan men suspected of planning alleged &quot;terrorist attacks&quot; and being linked to Al-Qaeda, police and media said Saturday.
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NAPLES, Italy  - Italian police raided scores of homes in the Naples area Tuesday and arrested 52 suspected mobsters, the largest single offensive in the state's bid to end a bloody organized crime war that has terrified this southern Italian city.