SIMCARTEL operation: Europol takes down SIM-Box ring linked to 3,200 scams

Europol’s SIMCARTEL operation shut down a SIM-box network linked to over 3,200 fraud cases and €4.5 million in losses, which used 1,200 SIM-box devices and 40,000 SIM cards to supply phone numbers for phishing, impersonation, extortion and related scams. On 10 October 2025, five cybercriminals of Latvian nationality were arrested and the infrastructure used by the criminal organisation was seized.

According to Europol’s press release, two further suspects were arrested, five servers were taken down, and 1,200 SIM-box devices alongside 40,000 active SIM cards were seized. The operation also saw the takeover of two websites, gogetsms[.]com and apisim[.]com, used to rent numbers from more than 80 countries. Investigators report that more than 1,700 fraud cases in Austria and 1,500 in Latvia, with total losses in the millions of euros, were attributed to the network.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of further SIM cards were seized, and the authorities froze €431,000 in suspects’ bank accounts and USD 333,000 in crypto accounts, with the network creating over 49 million online accounts during its activity.