International Phishing Scam Bust

If you don’t know about phishing, it is time for you to get properly educated because this type of scam is becoming increasingly popular – and phishers are getting much better at what they do.

If you don’t know what phishing is, it is a scam that involves sending emails to unsuspecting people asking for personal information such as account numbers. Usually, these emails are sent as if they are coming from a reputable banking institution.

Recently, a phishing ring was busted by the FBI in a sting called Operation Cardkeeper. This sting resulted in the arrests of seventeen people in both the United States and Poland. Additional Romanian suspects are also being questioned.

The ringleader of the operation went by the name of John Dillinger. He and other Americans used credit card numbers they received from phishers in Romania in order to make purchases and to sell the goods for cash. “Dillinger” is facing five counts of access device fraud and identity theft for his abuse of credit card numbers belonging to individuals that had accounts with Capital One. Authorities say there were over 100,000 credit card numbers that had been compromised by the ring through phishing and hacking into systems.

Despite having five counts against him and affecting thousands of people with his illegal activity, “Dillinger” will only face two to three years if he is convicted of all counts.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Card Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.