Germany announces 18 arrests in global fake subscription scams

TDT | Frankfurt

Email : editor@newsofbahrain.com

Eighteen suspects have been arrested in a crackdown on three international credit card fraud and money laundering rings, German authorities announced yesterday.

The networks made fraudulent charges for online subscriptions at bogus websites, causing more than 300 million euros (about $345 million) in damages, according to Germany’s Federal Criminal Police (BKA) and public prosecutors in the western German city of Koblenz.

Some employees at four major German payment providers are accused of collaborating with the fraud rings to facilitate the illegal transactions, “thereby compromising a portion of the German financial system,” Koblenz prosecutor Harald Kruse told reporters on Wednesday.

The phony websites were professionally designed to appear as pornography, video streaming and dating services, with 19 million subscriptions created.

Fraudulent charges were made on about 4.3 million bank cards from 193 different countries, authorities said.

“I’ve just been told that North Korea is among these countries,” Kruse said to underscore the scope of the fraud. “I didn’t even know they had credit cards there, I must honestly admit.