Police Arrested 55 Members of the Black Panthers for Stealing SIM Cards

Spanish police say they have arrested 55 members of the Black Panthers, including one of its leaders. Law enforcers say that the hack group specialized in SIM swapping and carding, using social engineering, vishing (voice phishing) and phishing to do this.

According to investigators, Black Panthers had a clear structure, where each cell was responsible for a specific type of scam: the already mentioned social engineering, vishing, phishing and carding. The arrested leader of the group coordinated the work of these “divisions”, recruited new members and money mules.

Let me remind you that we also wrote that Suspected Zeus Leader was arrested in Switzerland, and also that Hackers Who Sold Car Hacking Tools with Keyless Entry Arrested.

The main profile of the Black Panthers was carrying out attacks with the substitution of SIM cards, that is, transferring the phone numbers of victims to the devices of the attackers themselves. By porting someone else’s number to themselves, the attackers gained access to the victim’s text messages and could use this to bypass two-factor authentication of bank accounts (and subsequently empty them).

The scammers used a combination of phishing, vishing, and call forwarding to steal other people’s SIM cards, posing as victims in conversations with mobile operator support specialists.

At the same time, in some cases, fraudsters pretended to be technicians and attacked the telecommunications companies themselves, trying to steal the credentials of their employees. The police explain that this gave the hackers access to the base of telephone operators and allowed them to obtain the personal data of the victims by making duplicate SIM cards themselves.

After gaining access to the bank accounts of their targets, the scammers made several transfers to their money mules based on the Levantine coast. Investigators estimate that at least 100 victims suffered from the Black Panthers, and the scammers successfully stole about 250,000 euros.

The group is also reported to have been quite active on the dark web, where a Black Panthers carding cell has been buying up stolen IDs and bank card details for cryptocurrencies. The hackers used this data to buy various luxury items from online stores and then resold them as second-hand to unsuspecting buyers, effectively laundering money.