During the operation codenamed ‘SIMCARTEL’, law enforcement arrested two further suspects, took down five servers and seized 1 200 SIM box devices alongside 40 000 active SIM cards.
The online service created by the criminal network offered telephone numbers registered to people from over 80 countries for use in criminal activities. It allowed perpetrators to set up fake accounts for social media and communication platforms, which were subsequently used in cybercrimes while obscuring the perpetrators’ true identity and location.
The true scale of this network is still being uncovered. Measured by volume, more than 49 million online accounts were created on basis of the illegal service provided by suspects.
Cybercrime-as-a-service takedown: 7 arrested – Operation takes down sophisticated criminal network that enabled criminals to commit serious crimes across Europe | Europol
An action day performed in Latvia on 10 October 2025 led to the arrest of five cybercriminals of Latvian nationality and the seizure of infrastructure used to enable crimes against thousands of victims across Europe. During the operation codenamed ‘SIMCARTEL’, law enforcement arrested two further suspects, took down five servers and seized 1 200 SIM box devices alongside 40 000 active SIM cards. Investigators from Austria, Estonia and Latvia, together with their colleagues at Europol und Eurojust, were able to attribute to the criminal network more than 1 700 individual cyber fraud cases in Austria and 1 500 in Latvia, with a total loss of several million euros. The financial loss in Austria alone amounts to around EUR 4.5 million, as well as EUR 420 000 in Latvia.
Europol (www.europol.europa.eu)
