James Anderson,  Head of INTERPOL's Anti Corruption and Financial Crimes unit
Channel: INTERPOL
Date: 2015-12-17

More than 500 arrested in INTERPOL operation targeting phone and email scams

LYON, France – More than 500 people have been arrested and 15 call centres shut down in an INTERPOL-coordinated operation targeting multi-million dollar phone and email scams across the Asia Pacific region.
Involving 23 countries, Operation First Light 2015 resulted in a series of raids across the region with the largest in Indonesia where police arrested 245 Chinese and Taiwanese individuals, and in Cambodia where 168 Chinese nationals were taken into custody.
Korean, Nigerian, Filipino, Russian and Taiwanese nationals were also among those arrested in China, Hong Kong (China), Korea, Thailand and Vietnam during the two-month long operation during which more than 30 suspicious call centres were identified.
‘Social engineering fraud’ is a broad term that refers to scams through a range of means – including phone calls and social media – to manipulate or trick people into giving out confidential or personal information which can then be used for financial gain by the criminals involved.
In one scam discovered during Operation First Light 2015, fraudsters claiming to be couriers would contact a victim saying a parcel in their name had been linked to criminal activity.