New York: On Thursday, February 6, 2025, bombshells reverberated worldwide as the Federal Bureau of Investigation finally released all 4,097,843 crime photos from a massive sweep of cybercriminal interests. The FBI posted this announcement on social media platform X, saying the U.S. Department of Justice had seized 39 websites and their servers belonging to one of the largest cybercrime networks based in Pakistan.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the cybercrime ring was headed by Sam Raza, a Pakistan-based hacker. Raza, operating under the username “HeartSender” on the dark web, had been selling malware and phishing websites since 2020.
U.S. authorities’ probe found that the cybercrime nexus had defrauded victims of $3 million (around ₹25 crore) in the U.S. Another Pakistani gang sold online phishing kits and scam pages used for fraudulent activities. It was also learnt that Sam Raza also trained cybercriminals.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Raza even uploaded videos on YouTube showing scammers how to use his hacking tools to trick victims. Such tools were meticulous; they bypassed every security and antivirus to maintain surveillance.
With the help of these tools, Pakistani cybercriminals could also make fake transactions from companies, sending their funds to the wrong accounts. They did this to conduct vast scams using stolen, impersonated and hacked personal information. U.S. officials added that the Netherlands police also helped in the operation.