Crooks paid travel expenses to bring other offenders in the UK

Jul 18, 2014 13:31 GMT  ·  By

Two individuals, a male and a female, have been sentenced to eight and six years of prison time, respectively, as a result of running phishing scams from the United Kingdom on unsuspecting users.

According to London Metropolitan Police, the duo, identified as 23-year-old Constanta Agrigoroaie and 28-year-old Radu Savoae, pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy to commit fraud, six counts of possession of fraudulent ID cards, and possessing equipment to make fraudulent ID and bank cards.

They are Romanian nationals and reside in Mornington Avenue, Ilford, from where they sent phishing emails to more than 150 victims. The luring message purported to be from Apple and informed that the victim’s account had been compromised, urging them to update their details through a link to the phishing website.

The requested information also includes bank details, and once entered in the respective fields, the cybercrooks would receive it via email. They would then use it to extract large amounts of money.

The police say that the perps managed to steal more than £15,000 / €19,000 / $25,600 from victims in the United Kingdom, which would be used for buying travel tickets for Romanian pickpockets who operated on London's transport network.

The fraudulent activity of Agrigoroaie and Savoae was discovered as a result of a joint operation by detectives from the Metropolitan Police Service and Bedfordshire Police at Luton Airport, when a flight from Romania was intercepted.

Six passengers claiming they did not know each other had tickets bought through the same computer. Further investigation led to the phishing duo’s address.

“Investigation into these bookings revealed an address in Ilford was responsible for the purchase of the tickets and on 4 April, officers searched the address where they found Agrigoroaie sitting in front of a computer looking at websites belonging to east European airlines,” reads the news from the Metropolitan Police.

It appears that she also had a script open, with numerous personal details of the scammed victims; this included bank card information with the full 16 digit number, expiry date and CVV number, as well as home addresses.

During the raid, police officers found multiple laptops, iPads, printers and the necessary tools for cloning credit cards. The two scammers conducted fraudulent activities on computer users from around the world.

“This ‘phishing’ duo took advantage of many internet users and duped them into providing their personal information. However as a result of a tireless investigation by the RTPC, they have been jailed which has no doubt prevented numerous bank customers from becoming victims of this crime,” said Chief Superintendent Matt Bell, Roads and Transport Policing Command.