Police break up €100m-a-month investment fraud ring

Dutch police say they have largely dismantled an international criminal organisation that made more than €100 million a month through investment fraud.

The group ran around 20 call centres staffed by more than 700 “employees” who posed as financial advisers, according to a statement.

They built up trust with victims over weeks or months before persuading them to invest ever-larger sums – often in cryptocurrency – through fake trading platforms where no money was actually invested.

The main suspect, a 46-year-old man with Israeli and Polish nationality and a known hacker, was arrested at a Polish airport on May 26 while travelling from Dubai. Further arrests followed on Cyprus and in Athens in July.

Police have linked around 550 complaints in the Netherlands and 200 in Belgium to the network, which has been active since 2021. Dutch victims are thought to have lost nearly €25 million between them, most of them more than €10,000 each.

Worldwide, the organisation is estimated to have defrauded tens of thousands of people. Officers warned victims not to trust “recovery firms” that offer to retrieve lost money, which they suspect are run by the same network.