The arrest, carried out by the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime in Romania, together with police officers, followed over 100 searches carried out by prosecutors. According to Romanian authorities, the members of the criminal groups targeted over 800 victims, stealing roughly €800,000, and had been operating for four years throughout countries including Spain, Italy, France, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Austria, and North America. Ten people have also been detained in the Czech Republic following searches there.
Gary Dickson, the head of the FBI office in Bucharest, said that several hundred million dollars per year were being lost to cybercrime activity in Romania. "That's only money lost from the US. That's not even from Europe. Most of it is not recovered. People spend it, it just disappears," he said.
Dickson argued that the Romanian legal system makes it difficult to process trials quickly, because of the relatively infrequent hearings that are conducted in its courts.
"In general it's more difficult to seize money in Romania than it is in the US. The process takes longer and it's easier for people to hide it there, than it is in the US," he added, suggesting that changes were needed to the Romanian laws.
Romanian cybercriminals have become more sophisticated over the years, said Dickson, co-opting victims in the US and the UK to act as mules, rather than getting money delivered from their targets directly to Romania.