Australian law enforcement announced earlier this week that a woman from Melbourne arrested a couple of years ago is now sentenced to more than five years after participating in an ID fraud scheme.
Reports state that the 24-year-old woman pleaded guilty to her actions in November last year.
According to the authorities, the accused was part of an international crime syndicate engaged in a massive cybercriminal operation that has already stolen over $3 million. Moreover, the campaign to which the woman belonged had laundered about $2.5 million.
The Australian Federal Police apprehended the woman when she was about 21 years old at Melbourne airport as part of their investigation called Operation Birks.
The AFP further proved the role of the accused in the ID fraud scheme after a search warrant allowed them to inspect her home in Melbourne.
Based on investigations, the authorities found files of stolen identities that the woman allegedly used for their organisation’s ID fraud scheme. Moreover, the woman bought stolen real people’s identities on the dark web, which was also used for registering SIM cards and spoofing email accounts.
Subsequently, the malicious group in which the woman is involved has used the stolen identities to open more than 60 bank accounts in various Australian banking firms, which led to the loss of massive amounts of money.
The attackers have also utilised phishing websites on typo-squatted domains for their operation that their group endorsed through malvertising campaigns.
The AFP explained that the woman coordinated with other actors to develop a cloned website that impersonated the legitimate website of a superannuation fund.
The woman then sent the withdrawn money from fraudulent bank accounts to a contact in Hong Kong who bought assets that were hard to track. Her share of the laundered amounts was sent back to Australia as a cryptocurrency to lessen the chances of getting traced through money tracing.
Unfortunately, most of the victims of this ID fraud operation had not realised that their information had been stolen and offered on the dark web by threat actors. Therefore, people should invest in anti-fraud solutions to mitigate the chances of getting attacked.
