Police shuts down 12 fraud call centres, arrests 21 suspects

Europol and German-led law enforcement dismantled 12 transnational phone-fraud call centers (Operation PANDORA), arresting 21 suspects, seizing roughly €1 million in assets, and collecting electronic evidence after intercepting 1.3 million calls that used social-engineering schemes (fake police, investment, romance, lottery, debt collection). Real-time monitoring from December 2023 blocked around 80% of attempted fraud and prevented over €10 million in losses, linking one set of numbers to 28,000 scam calls in 48 hours and identifying additional centers and perpetrators across Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Lebanon.