UK police say they disrupted cyber fraud network that stole personal data from thousands

LONDON (AP) — A website that allowed international cyber fraudsters to trick up to 70,000 British victims into revealing personal information such as bank account details and passwords has been infiltrated and disrupted, London police said Thursday.

Metropolitan Police said they seized the LabHost site, which enabled more than 2,000 criminals to create phishing sites that got victims to reveal 480,000 bank card numbers and 64,000 PIN numbers.

Law enforcement in the U.K. and abroad arrested 37 people since Sunday, and another 800 were warned that police know their identity. Many of them remain under investigation.

The site set up in 2021 allowed criminals to pay a monthly fee to create fraudulent websites that appeared to be those of legitimate banks, healthcare agencies or postal services but were designed to steal users' personal information.

The site provided templates and a how-to lesson for less tech-savvy users to use profiles of 170 companies to set up some 40,000 scam sites.

The tutorial ended with a robotic voice saying: “Stay safe and good spamming.”

Police have notified as many as 25,000 U.K. victims that their data was compromised.

The Associated Press