Georgia involved in Europol int’l sweep arresting 20 in multi-million money laundering case
Members of the criminal group were from Latvia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania and Belgium. Photo:pymnts.com.
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Georgia and 15 other states were involved in a large-scale, international operation coordinated by Europol to arrest 20 individuals suspected of belonging to the QQAAZZ criminal network which has laundered tens of millions of euros on behalf of the world’s foremost cybercriminals.
Georgian Interior Ministry stated earlier today that it was an ‘unprecedented’ operation and that the members of the criminal group were mainly from Latvia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Belgium.
QQAAZZ group has been operating since 2016 and had connections with the largest hacker groups that spread ransomware.
Infographics by Europol.
Europol says that the QQAAZZ network opened and maintained hundreds of corporate and personal bank accounts at financial institutions throughout the world to receive money from cybercriminals who had stolen these funds.
The funds were then transferred to other QQAAZZ-controlled bank accounts and sometimes converted to cryptocurrency using ‘tumbling’ services designed to hide the original source of the funds. After taking a fee of up to 50-percent, QQAAZZ returned the balance of the stolen funds to their cybercriminal clientele,” Europol said.
This international sweep followed a complex investigation led by the Portuguese Judicial Police together with the United States Attorney Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania and the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office, alongside the Spanish National Police and the regional Catalan police and law enforcement authorities from the United Kingdom, Latvia, Bulgaria, the Georgia, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic, Australia, Sweden, Austria and Belgium with coordination efforts led by Europol.
High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of European Commission Josep Borrell has condemned Russia’s widespread cyber attack against Georgia back in October 2019.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry has thanked the international community for the ‘strict and immediate’ condemnation of Russia’s widespread cyber attack against Georgia back in October 2019. “Briefly we stated yesterday that Russia stood behind the cyber attack last year, about 20 countries condemned the action which shows that Georgia is not alone in combating severe challenges,” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Vladimer Konstantinidi said earlier today.
The US condemns Russia’s ‘widespread disruptive cyber attack against Georgia,' carried out in October 2019, the press office of US State Secretary Mike Pompeo said earlier today.
A global organized cybercrime network that used malware GozNym to infect computers and steal 100 million USD from more than 41,000 institutions has been taken down - Georgia helped in the process.
The Investigation Service of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia took part in a “coordinated operation” of the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation targeting trafficking of counterfeit and misused medications and doping substances, the Service said on Monday.