Police shut 1,200 scam websites

The Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) has shut down 1,219 scam websites in what could be the single biggest operation of its kind in the world to date.

The sites that claimed to be selling designer goods such as GHD hair straighteners, Ugg boots, Tiffany or Links of London jewellery used .co.uk suffixes to fool people into believing they were dealing with a UK company.

However, the sites were run by criminal networks and based in Asia. Computeractive has also learned that many of the sites are believed to have been allowed to have merchant credit services.

These services allow websites to take payments by credit and debit cards but first the accrediting bank is meant to thoroughly check the company is genuine.

To make it even harder for people to realise the sites were scams, the fraudsters in some cases may have also obtained genuine SSL certificates so they could display a golden padlock.

Innocent shoppers who believed they were bagging a bargain have received either fake goods or nothing at all.

People who fell for the scams, which are believed to have generated millions for the criminals, are also being warned that they are also at risk of having their identities stolen and their card and bank details used for other frauds.

Last Christmas Computeractive uncovered a similar scam where a site based in Asia was selling fake Nintendo DS consoles. These were seized by Customs and Excise.

Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie, head of the PCeU, said: "Fraudsters target the victim's desire to buy designer goods at reduced prices, particularly at this time of year. The risk begins when your desire to purchase blinds your judgment or leads you to illegal websites. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is."

The investigation, called Operation Papworth, was initially instigated by the PCeU to target the criminal misuse of the UK domain name system, with the objective of preventing harm to British citizens and making it safer to trade online.

The investigation ran for roughly a month with the police working closely with Nominet, the UK registry for the .co.uk suffix, as well as Trading Standards, the Office of Fair Trading and brand manufacturers.

Nominet began suspending the sites on Tuesday and the whole process took about 24 hours. Lesley Cowley, Nominet's chief executive told Computeractive that the criminals will not be able to re-register them anywhere else.

“We received clear instructions from the PCeU to take down the .co.uk domain names, and working with our registrars managed to get them suspended very quickly.

"If anyone now tries to go to the site they will see the error page and can check at Nominet’s Whois site which shows the site is frozen and the fraudsters can't re-register the domain names again.”

It is not yet known how many criminal gangs or networks are involved in the scams. The PCeU is now working with the authorities in the countries where the criminals are believed to be based.

It is also continuing to work with Nominet and top domain name registrars to prevent the future fraudulent registration of sites using false or misleading details.

The Office of Fair Trading is also helping the PCeU gather intelligence to prevent similar activity in future.