Europol has revealed new details about the international operation against an alleged network of online investment fraud, which allegedly had casualties in over 50 countries of the world.

Except for KosovoThe raids also took place in Albania, Cyprus, Finland, Germany and Northern Macedonia, under a co-ordinated operation with Eurojust support.

According to Europol’s announcement, during the 3 November action a total of 17 locations have been checked, more than 100 servers have been seized and seven people have been arrested, with the goal of extradition to Germany.

Europol has indicated that the investigation has uncovered a company based in Cyprus and Israel that allegedly supplied criminal groups with false platforms for investment trading.

These groups allegedly operated call centres in Albania, Kosovo and Northern Macedonia, through which citizens persuaded them to invest their savings.

According to Europol, the victims were initially attracted through fraudulent online advertising, which promoted big profits from investments in crypto notes, foreign currency and shares.

Personal records of those interested in investments were collected and then sold to criminal groups managing call centres.

Operators contacted the victims and offered them alleged investment opportunities. Initially, they were required to transfer small amounts of money, while in their accounts were shown illegal profits to create the impression that investment was successful.

Then, through psychological pressure, victims were encouraged to invest ever larger sums. When asking for money, the payments were hampered by different reasonings and delays until frauds stopped communicating.

Europol estimates damage from this scheme exceeded Four million euros.

The investigation had begun in 2022, following a German couple’s complaint that had failed to attract money invested through an online platform. Previous operations in 2022 and 2025 had led to arrests and sequencing of evidence, which helped identify the network’s infrastructure.

In the latest operation, Europol sent experts to Kosovo and Albania to support digital investigations and analysis of seized materials.

In Kosovo, the action was confirmed for Insider by Special Prosecutor Arbnor Luta’s spokeswoman, which announced that the operation was being conducted in co-operation with international authorities.

So far, authorities have not made public the identities of those arrested and their individual role in the alleged criminal scheme.

Source Layer: Insander