Law enforcement infiltrates fraud platform used by thousands of criminals worldwide
A website used by more than 2,000 criminals to defraud victims worldwide has been infiltrated in the Met’s latest joint operation to tackle large-scale online fraud. ‘LabHost’ is a service which was set up in 2021 by a criminal cyber network. It enabled the creation of “phishing” websites designed to trick victims into revealing personal information such as email addresses, passwords, and bank details.
But LabHost has now been infiltrated and disrupted as the result of a worldwide operation led by the Met.
Work began in June 2022 after detectives received crucial intelligence about LabHost’s activity from the Cyber Defence Alliance. Once the scale of site and the linked fraud became clear the Met’s Cyber Crime Unit joined forces with the National Crime Agency, City of London Police, Europol, Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs) across the country and other international police forces to take action.
Partners including Chainalysis, Intel 471, Microsoft, The Shadowserver Foundation and Trend Micro have also been at the centre of our efforts to bring down this platform.