Police have arrested 178 people in Europe and the United States suspected of cloning credit cards in an international scam worth over €20 million, Spanish police said today.
Police in fourteen countries participated a two-year investigation, initiated in Spain where police have discovered 120,000 stolen credit card numbers and 5,000 cloned cards, arrested 76 people and dismantled six cloning labs.
The raids were made primarily in Ireland, Romania, France, Italy, Germany and the United States, with arrests made in Australia, Sweden, Greece, Finland and Hungary.
The detainees are also suspected of armed robbery, blackmail, sexual exploitation and money-laundering, the police said.
it is believed up to 12 people were arrested in Ireland.
A Garda spokesman declined to give details of the arrests but said gardaí were working closely on a daily basis with Europol and other European police forces to combat organised crime.
Additional reporting: Reuters
