Law enforcement seized two luxury cars and impounded RON 4,340,000 worth of movable and immovable property belonging to individuals investigated in a case of illegal access to a computer system, computer fraud and money laundering that caused British authorities a loss of 1 million pounds sterling.

'Following 13 home searches carried out on July 10 in Bucharest and in Ilfov, Giurgiu and Calarasi counties by police officers from the Economic Crime Investigation Department, under the supervision of the case prosecutor from the Prosecutor's Office attached to the Bucharest Court of Appeal, 14 mobile phones, four laptops, 43 bank cards, jewelry, 14 gold mini-ingots and six gold coins were discovered and seized,' the Romanian Police Inspectorate General said in a release on Friday.

Two luxury cars were seized and taken over by the National Agency for the Administration of Impounded Assets.

Also, the police ordered a 24-hour arrest for three people under investigation, the cited source says.

According to investigators, starting with September 2023 and up until recently, a crime gang of 16 has supposedly gained unauthorised access to the digital systems made available to the population by the British Government, by taking control of authentic Government Gateway accounts and editing the details or creating fraudulent accounts in the name of taxpayers, by using their social security numbers.

The criminal activity has reportedly compromised over 1,000 British taxpayer accounts.

The phishing activity consisted of registrations of fake employers in the systems of HM Revenue & Customs, specifically the PAYE (Pay As You Earn) tax refund application, the registration of a large number of individuals for a personal tax account, as well as of bogus refund requests related to income tax and other taxes, the cited source shows.

The fraudulently obtained income tax refunds were allegedly paid into UK bank accounts under the control of the investigated persons. Subsequently, the amounts were successively transferred to other bank accounts or withdrawn in cash from ATMs, with the aim of disguising their true origin.

To date, according to the evidence submitted in the case, the loss caused to the British authorities stands at 1,063,939.5 pounds sterling, the equivalent of RON 6,170,849.1.

The judicial cooperation activities were carried out with the support of EUROJUST, with a European Cooperation Agreement concluded with the British authorities in this case (prosecution bodies and HMRC), in order to facilitate the exchange of evidence and identify all the members of the gang. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Daniel Alexandru Florea; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)