Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on October 13, 2025
1 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleGerman authorities and BaFin shut down 1,400 illegal cybertrading websites in Eastern Europe, targeting fraudulent trading accounts.
BERLIN (Reuters) -German investigators and banking watchdog BaFin have shut down over 1,400 illegal domains in Eastern Europe that were involved in cybertrading fraud, officials said in a joint statement on Monday.
Dubbed Operation Heracles, the probe was conducted by Baden Wuerttemberg state criminal police and BaFin, Europol and Bulgarian authorities in an effort to crack down on those facilitating the use of fraudulent trading accounts.
Users of the websites were directed to brokers operating from call centres abroad who would encourage them to invest large sums. For many it took months to notice that their money was not being invested, the authorities said.
"The perpetrators are becoming increasingly professional," said Birgit Rodolphe of BaFin. "They use artificial intelligence to churn out illegal websites and use them to lure investors into traps."
This operation follows a previous shutdown of 800 illegal domains in June of this year. There have since been 20 million attempts to access them.
"The measures significantly weakened the criminal actors by specifically disabling their technical infrastructure," the authorities said.
(Reporting by Alexander Huebner and Natascha Koch, Editing by Friederike Heine)
Cybertrading refers to the online trading of financial instruments, including stocks, currencies, and commodities, often facilitated through digital platforms.
Fraud is a wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain, often involving misleading information.
Regulatory compliance involves adhering to laws, regulations, guidelines, and specifications relevant to business operations, particularly in finance.
Financial crime encompasses a range of illegal activities that involve money or financial transactions, including fraud, money laundering, and embezzlement.
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