During the search, police seized €40,000 in cash and found the same amount in a bank account. Police found 10 mobile phones during the raid, which, after analysis, sent approximately 10,000 phishing text messages in one day.

Police in Ireland have uncovered what has been described as a "fraud factory" during a planned raid in the Tallaght area. During the search, police seized €40,000 in cash and found the same amount in a bank account.

A suspect in his 20s was arrested and questioned for several days under anti-gangland laws before being released without charge on Friday.

Phishing is a scam in which fraudsters use text messages to trick intended recipients into clicking on a link to a cloned website.

The investigation was led by Blackrock Police and was supported by professionals from Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB).

A senior source said: "This is considered a very significant operation and it is the first time such a large-scale operation linked to a phishing scam has been detected in Ireland."

Police found 10 mobile phones in the raid , after analysis, these mobile phones sent approximately 10,000 phishing text messages in one day.

Police also seized a laptop computer which was found to have controlled multiple fake websites related to SMS fraud.

The Prosecutor General's Office will now prepare a document related to the suspect who was released late last week, and investigators will try to prove that the 80,000 euros seized are proceeds of crime.

Gardaí's National Economic Crime Bureau seized around 10 mobile phones during a planned raid in Blanchardstown earlier this month, all of which were in "airplane mode" when police raided the property.

Latest figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics show that fraud crime almost doubled to 17,354 in the year to the end of March 2022, mainly caused by unauthorized transactions and attempts to gain access to individuals or banks online or over the phone. caused by information.

Last year this number was 9,219, an increase of 88%.

Both raids this month were part of Operation Skein. During the operation, police identified more than 700 suspects, 203 people were arrested and 98 people were charged in an investigation led by Gardaí's National Economic Crime Bureau.

was involved in the scams in which €31 million was stolen and money laundered through Irish Bank accounts.

Smishing is a compound word of "SMS" (text message) and "phishing" (phishing), which refers to a scam in which scammers use mobile phone text messages to trick you into opening malicious attachments or links.

Irish police advise people to be wary of text messages - even if they are contained in genuine text messages from financial institutions, and not to click on links - as doing so you may enter a cloned website.

Police are urging people to be very careful, noting that banking institutions will never send text messages containing links.

Account takeover fraud occurs when an individual receives a text message (smishing), phone call (vishing), or email (phishing) from a fraudster that appears to be from a bank, service provider, courier company, or government agency with the intent of taking over their Bank account, device or debit/credit card details.

Fraudsters use specialized software to often make their text messages, emails or phone calls appear to come from legitimate addresses or phone numbers.

Last year, police received more than 3,500 reports of account takeover fraud.

And in 2020, only 544 cases were reported. 77% of the target population is between the ages of 20-50. More than half (52%) were women.

In short, don’t click on links in text messages! !