Tech: Trio Detained for Swindling 1.2 Million Euros from a Thousand Dutch People

The police have arrested three people who defrauded almost a thousand Dutch people for 1.2 million euros. This is confirmed by the Central Netherlands Corps The Telegraph. Two suspects were arrested in Romania.

The suspects used phishing. This is a method in which malicious parties use fake e-mails or text messages to fish for personal data, such as login and bank details. The group was active on Marktplaats, among other things.

It concerns three men aged 26, 27 and 33. Two of them are from Enschede and the third suspect has no fixed place of residence or abode. One of the suspects’ girlfriend is also in the picture as a suspect, but she was not arrested during the operation in Romania, the daily writes.

It is not clear when the men were arrested. The police would have been investigating for almost a year. The corps got the men in their sights when officers checked a suspicious telephone number in their database. That yielded more than a hundred hits The Telegraph a police spokesman.

Nearly a thousand victims have been identified so far. The police suspect that more people have been duped, but that they do not report because of shame.