LISBON, Portugal: Police in Spain have captured a cybercrime gang made up of Ukrainians and Russians that allegedly stole more than 1 billion euros ($1.24 billion) from financial institutions worldwide in a five-year spree, authorities said Monday.
The gang’s alleged mastermind, identified as a Ukrainian and named only as “Denis K.,” was arrested in the coastal city of Alicante, 350 kilometers (220 miles) southeast of Madrid, according to statements issued by Spanish police and European Union law enforcement agency Europol.
Three suspected accomplices, said to be Russian and Ukrainian, were also arrested, Spanish authorities said. In Ukraine, police said that an unidentified 30-year-old man linked to the gang was cooperating with authorities.
The hackers — whose activities have long been tracked by security researchers — used malware to target more than 100 financial institutions worldwide, sometimes stealing up to 10 million euros in each heist. Almost all of Russia’s banks were targeted, and about 50 of them lost money in the electronic robberies, authorities said.
The gang used well-worn techniques such as booby trapped emails to break into banks and compromise the networks controlling ATMs, effectively turning the machines into free cash dispensers.
Ross Rustici, a senior director at Boston-based digital security firm Cybereason, said the gang stood out from others because of the amount of care and planning it put into operations.
“They’re unusual in how slow and methodical they are and how organized they are,” Rustici said. Other groups use similar techniques in isolation, “but nobody before them had strung all those things together on such a scale,” he said.
Authorities said that the gang converted its illicit gains into bitcoins and used the cryptocurrency to purchase big ticket items, including houses and vehicles, in Spain.
Rustici said it seemed likely the gang members botched their effort to launder their ill-gotten gains.
“That’s usually what happens with these who are very good on the network side, they make mistakes on the money side,” he said. “You can’t buy a nice villa on the Mediterranean with cryptocurrency. Or at least not yet.”
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Satter reported from London.
Spain breaks up cybercrime gang after $1.2 billion spree
Spain breaks up cybercrime gang after $1.2 billion spree
Germany’s Merz vows to keep out far-right as he warns of a changed world
- “We will not allow these people from the so-called Alternative for Germany to ruin our country,” Merz told party delegates
- He avoided critising his coalition partners in the center-left Social Democrats
STUTTGART, Germany: Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed on Friday not to let the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “ruin” Germany and told his fellow conservatives to prepare for a raw new climate of great-power competition.
Merz’s message to the Christian Democrat (CDU) party’s conference in Stuttgart reiterated points he made at last weekend’s Munich Security Conference, saying the “rules based order we knew no longer exists.” He also made calls for economic reform, and a rejection of antisemitism and the AfD, which is aiming to win its first state election this year.
“We will not allow these people from the so-called Alternative for Germany to ruin our country,” he told party delegates, who welcomed former chancellor Angela Merkel with a storm of applause on her first visit to the conference since stepping down in 2021.
Merz, trailing badly in the polls ahead of a string of state elections this year, said he accepted criticism that the reforms he announced during last year’s election campaign had been slower than initially communicated.
“I will freely admit that perhaps, after the change of government, we did not make it clear quickly enough that we would not be able to achieve this enormous reform effort overnight,” he said.
He avoided critising his coalition partners in the center-left Social Democrats and promised to push ahead with efforts to cut bureaucracy, bring down energy costs and foster investment, saying that economic prosperity was vital to Germany’s security.
He also pledged further reforms of the welfare state and said new proposals for a reform of the pension system would be presented, following a revolt by younger members of his own party in a bruising parliamentary battle last year.
Merz’s speech was greeted with around 10 minutes of applause as delegates put on a show of unity and he was re-elected as party chairman with 91 percent of the vote, avoiding any potentially embarrassing display of internal dissatisfaction.
Among other business, the party conference is due to discuss a motion to block access to social media platforms for children under the age of 16. However any legislation would take time because under the German system, state governments have the main responsibility for regulating media.
The elections begin next month with the western states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate before a further round later in the year, one of them in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD hopes to win its first state ballot.
