A 40-year-old Russian woman, a computer expert was arrested Monday in Genoa (north-west) for belonging to an international group accused of cloning bank cards and recycling the stolen money into cryptocurrencies.
"
In everyday life she was a quiet mother, but in reality, behind an apparent normality, hid a hacker: she was in fact a computer engineer with a passion for crime and cryptocurrencies
", writes the police in a statement.
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The woman would create false identities and steal money from victims using cloned bank cards and then use that money to buy next-generation smartphones or state-of-the-art computer hardware.
This material was subsequently either sent to Russia, to other members of the criminal group, or resold through e-commerce sites, the statement added.
The money earned in this way "
was then recycled through the purchase of cryptocurrencies,
" the statement said.
Police seized hundreds of credit cards and computer equipment in large quantities from the woman's home, whose identity was not disclosed.