Fraud with Apple voucher cards: gangs from China in Northern Europe

A According to the Norwegian broadcaster NRK were convicted in the country several Chinese citizens who have acquired numerous Apple voucher cards with stolen credit cards. These seem to be organized gangs that are equipped with lists of supermarkets in smaller and larger Norwegian locations. You move from business to shop and then acquire the cards to self -service cash registers. One of the ones is said to have acquired 126 Apple voucher cards on only one day.

119 voucher cards in one day

The fraudsters act remote controlled and are connected to their Chinese clients by means of a mobile phone connection. Your Android devices will then be recorded by phishing attacks, especially in Europe and the USA, loan card data with which you pay. Then send photos of the activated Apple voucher cards to the clients. To do this, you will receive high amounts of money, in individual cases over 3000 euros for a day work when visiting seven supermarkets and 119 acquired Apple voucher cards, writes NRK.

Apple voucher cards are considered attractive for criminals for several reasons: they are suitable for the purchase of digital and physical goods from the group (app store such as Apple Store), are therefore widespread and can therefore be made quickly-and they seem to be difficult to be traceable and are therefore suitable for this form of money laundering. The latter in particular is confused: at least a link between the (stolen) credit card with an Apple voucher code should be possible in order to then lock it. It remains unclear whether this (and how often) takes place in practice.

Cards stolen, then stored in Apple Pay or Google Pay

According to NRK, the cards are transferred to the cell phone of the gang members via special software that run on Android devices. The cards themselves seem to be created after the Phishinging using Apple Pay or Google Pay. The fraudsters particularly like to use Norwegian cards because they can normally be verified via SMS, which the phishing victims often do themselves because they take a correct payment, writes NRK In another report.

Apple has not yet commented on the incidents. In Norway, at least two people from China were convicted of seven months in prison for money laundering, another to a fine, which was then paid for after the threat of prison. Both people were deported. However, at least three other gang members were not caught. Apparently there is a high number of unreported cases.