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Two foreign students have been arrested in Brisbane, accused of being part of an international syndicate using a cold call scam to steal about $3 million from more than 150 Australian victims.
Queensland police allege victims generally lost between $10,000 and $20,000 but the highest amount stolen from one victim had topped $600,000 and the oldest victim was 95 years old.
The two foreign students were led out of their Albion accommodation in handcuffs on Tuesday.Credit:Queensland Police Service
Two male foreign nationals, aged 24 and 26, were arrested in the Brisbane suburb of Albion on Tuesday. They were charged with recklessly engaging in money laundering and were due to appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on September 28.
Since the police operation targeting the alleged criminal syndicate began in May 2019, there have been 11 arrests and 25 charges laid in total.
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Detective Senior Constable Brett Weder said more than 1000 bank accounts had been opened across Australia and used as part of the money laundering operation.
"We believe there is a call centre offshore cold-calling victims around Australia, pretending to be telecommunication companies or financial companies," he said.
"They're then saying to the victims that they have a problem with their IP address, internet or fraud has been detected on your bank accounts.
"The scammer offers assistance to fix the problem, but doing that they gain remote access to the victim's computer or device.
"The scammer asks the victim to download a specific program and while they're doing that the scammer then enter the victim's computer and ask the victim to log onto their bank accounts to make sure you haven't been hacked.
"So the victims log onto each ..
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