The “super scam” that shook Europe: “evaporated” 1.5 trillion with just a few phone calls

The London Police Department, the FBI and European law enforcement agencies have opened an international investigation into the incident when it was discovered that iSpoof.cc scammed 200,000 people in the UK.

This “criminal” website uses high technology to make victims think they are talking to employees of Barclays, NatWest or Halifax banks. But in reality, they are communicating with fake people.

According to the data, there are 59,000 scammers who accept to pay between 150 and 5,000 pounds (VND 4 million-150 million) to sign up for iSpoof.cc and use this “hacking” technology. Through the bridging process, the person behind the site even earned £3.2 million (nearly VND 96 billion). According to statistics, 40% of victims are living in the US, 35% in the UK. Many Australians and other Europeans have also become “ideal prey”.

On average, each victim has lost 10,000 pounds (nearly 300 million VND). Even one person was stolen up to 3 million pounds (nearly 90 billion) when agreeing to use certain special services at a fake bank. Over the past few weeks, the police department has detected and caught more than 100 scams through the app. Up to now, 48 million pounds have been lost, although the actual number is much higher. Currently, anyone who tries to access the iSpoof website will receive a notification that the site has been “criminal” and removed.

According to Helen Rance, detective with the London police department, scammers will buy victims’ banking information on the dark web to easily build trust. Then make a series of phone calls pretending to be bank employees to conduct “theft”. Scammers made 10 million calls after the website was founded in December 2020. Even at one point, 20 people were scammed every minute. This is an unbelievable number.

The mastermind behind is Teejai Fletcher, 34, from London. He has been charged with fraud and is due to appear in court on December 6. In an encrypted telegram message, Fletcher advertised iSpoof.cc as the leading impersonation site.

Not only faking bank messages, iSpoof.cc can also handle all calls and set up automatic switchboard sounds. The site also boasts that it can work on both Android and iOS operating systems. What’s special, scammers can register and pay web usage fees in bitcoin, completely confidentially without worrying about revealing their identity to the administrator.

Detective Rance explained how iSpoof users cheat innocent people. Victims will often worry that their bank accounts are not verified or appear suspicious. The fraudsters will contact and ask the customer to read the 6-digit code sent to the phone to prove the cardholder. In essence, this is the code that makes the payment transaction and the victim will lose money soon after.

British police have launched a detailed investigation and cooperated with Dutch police. They discovered that one of the website’s servers was located in the Netherlands and another in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. It is suspicious that even though iSpoof was disabled until November, the server system in Kyiv was closed in September.

At the time, a tiktoker posted a video with the content: “Congratulations to all iSpoof users”. One follower of this character even commented on November 11 that: “50 people have been fooled”, along with a laughing emoji. However, there is no evidence that this tiktoker is related to the scam.

Although the boss behind was caught, the investigation is still ongoing. The police department took down the site to prevent future scams and arrested the administrator. They also broadcast a tracking notice with the location of the remaining criminals, wherever they may be.

Currently, the police force is in contact with 70,000 victims to gather evidence and learn about this “sophisticated” fraudulent process.

According to Daily Mail