Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on November 4, 2025
1 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
German police led a global crackdown on fraud networks, arresting suspects in nine countries and targeting compromised payment providers.
FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office said on Tuesday it had conducted an internationally coordinated action against alleged fraud and money laundering networks that compromised German payment service providers and racked up damages of hundreds of millions of euros.
They said multiple people were arrested and searches occurred in Germany, Italy, Canada, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, the U.S. and Cyprus.
The suspects are accused of using credit card details belonging to victims from 193 countries, the authorities said.
"There is also suspicion that the defendants compromised four major German payment service providers in order to process payments," the BKA said.
Damages are estimated to be "in the mid-three-digit million (euros) range".
Authorities are expected to provide further details at a press conference on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Tom Sims; Editing by Nia Williams and Paul Simao)
Fraud is a wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain. It can involve various schemes, including identity theft, credit card fraud, and investment scams.
Money laundering is the process of concealing the origins of illegally obtained money, typically by passing it through a complex sequence of banking transfers or commercial transactions.
The damages caused by fraud can be significant, often amounting to millions of euros, affecting individuals, businesses, and financial institutions.
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