Two arrested in Northampton in UK's biggest ever fraud operation which targeted 200,000 victims via iSpoof website

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Fraud squad carries out raids in town to dismantle scammers’ operation

Two men in their early-20s were arrested in Northampton as part of the UK’s biggest ever fraud operation to dismantle a one-stop spoofing website allowing scammers to pose a bank staff.

More than 200,000 potential victims country-wide and more overseas have been directly targeted through the iSpoof site. At one stage, nearly 20 people a minute were being contacted by scammers posting posed as representatives of banks including Barclays, Santander, HSBC, Lloyds, Halifax, First Direct, Natwest, Nationwide and TSB.

Officers from the Northamptonshire Police Serious & Complex Economic Crime Unit carried out raids as part of an operation started by Scotland Yard’s Cyber Crime Unit and in partnership with the National Crime Agency and authorities in the US and Ukraine. Two men aged 23 and 21 were arrested in Northampton and have since been released on bail pending further enquiries.

Northamptonshire Police fraud squad officers teamed up with the Met to make two arrests in Northampton as part of the iSpoof probe

Detective Sergeant Andrea Taylor said: “We were really pleased to be part of this national operation and help take down iSpoof who have been scamming people for far too long. We will continue working hard in this county to bring those people who defraud hardworking people out of their money to justice.”

Met Police last month sent text messages to 70,000 people across the UK they believed could have been victims of iSpoof.

iSpoof has allowed its criminal users, who paid for the service in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, to disguise their phone number so it appeared as if they were calling from a trusted source.