A recent announcement from the European police revealed that the security force conducted two major operations against business email compromise (BEC) fraudsters, leading to the arrests of almost 100 suspects. Although the campaigns were only recently made public, the crackdowns occurred in November of 2021. The police campaigns have been named Operation Wine Cellar and Operation Theatre and were carried out by the Anti-Economic Crime Department of the Budapest Metropolitan Police. Europol’s European Financial and Economic Crime Centre also assisted in the operations.

The arrests were made following two complex fraud cases in which security forces identified an organized crime group targeting state-owned companies. The fraudsters leveraged fake invoices to achieve their financial goals, impersonating a service company to trick victims into thinking that they owed the service money via a new bank account. Using this technique, the scheme was successful in defrauding 94 organizations, resulting in millions of dollars in profit.

Read More: European Police Arrest 100 Suspects in BEC Crackdown