UK Police Arrests Six In Phishing Fraud

Six suspects in UK and Ireland have been arrested in an attempt to end an ongoing banking scam that has hit more than 20,000 bank and credit card accounts and netted around £3 million.

The sophisticated phishing scam allowed the criminals to get hold of their victims' banking details - including credit card numbers, personal information and logins - before siphoning off money from their online bank accounts.

The gang sent millions of unsolicited emails to warn their victims that their accounts were going to be closed, urging them to change their personal details before redirecting them to specially designed fake "bank" websites.

Until now, police has managed to find out only £360,000 or so of the bounty but the Metropolitan police reckons that the final sum may well be nearly 9 times higher than that.

All six have been arrested under the Computer Misuse Act on suspicion of conspiracy to commit online banking fraud and offences.

The dismantling was part of Operation Dynamophone, which is an ongoing exercise by the Police Central e-Crime Unit which aims at identifying and eliminating phishing networks.