‘Operation Nuclear’ Busts Global Card Ring

Spanish police working with other agencies worldwide last week took down global credit and debit card fraud ring engaged in skimming card numbers and cloning accounts to get cash at ATMs.

The BBC reported that "unsuspecting people around the world" lost about $24.5 million to the worldwide fraud ring. The arrests, dubbed "Operation Nuclear," were the result of a two-year investigation and centered on the Spanish city of Valencia, where 76 people were arrested, of a total of 178 arrests globally in 14 countries. Eight people were arrested in the United States, most other arrests were in Europe, though the investigation extended as far as Australia and involved 84 separate raids.

The Spanish Interior Ministry said police seized about 5,000 counterfeit cards and 120,000 stolen card numbers, Secure Computing magazine reported. Police found and destroyed 11 laboratories where the gang, thought to be comprised mostly of Eastern Europeans, produced skimming devices that read credit card numbers and allowed the fraudsters to create cloned accounts. The Irish Examiner reported that heads of different sections of the loosely organized gang paid a percentage of their benefits to bosses and made payoffs to shop employees who passed on customer credit card numbers.