April 6th, 2023: @Twitter has been randomly shutting down API access for many apps and sadly we were affected today too. Hopefully we will be restored soon! We appreciate your patience until then.
An international operation involving the National Crime Agency has taken down one of the biggest online marketplaces selling stolen credentials to criminals worldwide.
Genesis Market was a go-to service for criminals seeking to defraud victims.
The platform hosted 80 million credentials and digital fingerprints stolen from over two million people.
Led by the @FBI and @Politie, activity to take the site down involved 17 countries.
As part of the investigation, the NCA identified hundreds of UK-based users of the platform and information was passed to policing partners.
This resulted in 47 warrants being executed in coordinated raids by the NCA, Regional Cyber Crime Units and police forces.
Targeting this infrastructure is at the core of the NCA's efforts to disrupt the highest harm offenders and protect the public from those seeking to infiltrate their lives and steal their identities and their money.
Officers from the Organised Crime Partnership Scotland, made up of NCA and @PoliceScotland started an investigation after @UKBorder stopped Albanskyj at customs.
His suitcases were forced open after he claimed not to know the padlock codes. They contained just two t-shirts and 33 kilos of herbal cannabis which had been packed into individual bags, worth £295,000 at street level.
A husband and wife - Ardian Sharra, aged 51, and Valbona Laloshi, aged 41, from Tring, Hertfordshire - who tried to smuggle more than £200,000 out of the UK during the height of the Covid lockdown have been convicted of money laundering.
They were investigated by the NCA after their Mercedes car was stopped at the Channel Tunnel terminal in Kent in 2020. They initially declared they had £5,000 with them, however, a search of their vehicle by @UKBorder led to the recovery of more than £200,000 hidden in the boot.
The NCA has conducted a major operation to arrest a wealthy Russian businessman on suspicion of offences including money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the Home Office and conspiracy to commit perjury.
The 58 year old man was arrested on Thursday (1 December) at his multi-million-pound residence in London by officers from the NCA’s Combatting Kleptocracy Cell.
A 35 year old man, employed at the premises, was arrested nearby on suspicion of money laundering and obstruction of an NCA Officer after he was seen leaving the address with a bag found to contain thousands of pounds in cash.
Kemeel Reid hid a Bulldog revolver loaded with three 0.32 calibre bullets in the loft of his home in Finchley Road, Oscott, Birmingham.
Acting on intelligence about him and conspirator T’reece Ellis-Brade NCA firearms officers raided Reid’s home on 15 December last year.
Officers also found £3,800 in cash, 100g of cannabis and a 9mm blank ammunition casing.
Reid’s revolver contained his DNA and that of accomplice and friend Ellis-Brade, whom NCA officers arrested at the same time near his home on Malvern Hill Road, near Tyseley, Birmingham.
An NCA investigation found Devon Rowe, 43, Baboucarr Nyang, 49, and Winston Andrew, 55, conspired to smuggle cocaine through Manchester Airport.
In October 2018, Andrew was stopped by @ukhomeoffice Border Force who discovered 2.9kg of the Class A drug hidden in his suitcases
During the investigation, officers found evidence, including photos of large amounts of cash, which revealed conspiracies involving approximately 32kg of cocaine being smuggled to the UK.
Last month, Rowe, Andrew and Nyang were all convicted of conspiring to import cocaine.
The NCA investigated Dalton Anderson, 50, Alvin Russell, 45, and Sinclair Tucker, 64, after Birmingham-based Vision Christian Ministries (VCM) was used to smuggle the drugs - worth up to £2 million.
The trio were arrested after Border Force seized three separate consignments addressed to VCM in 2017.
All three were charged with drug offences and have now been convicted following a five-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court.