Members of the transnational cybercrime group QQAAZZ have been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on various charges relating to their involvement in providing services to high-profile cybercrime gangs.

The QQAAZZ members indicted are alleged to have provided money-laundering services to groups behind Dridix, TrickBot and GozNym. TrickBot is the best-known of the three: Microsoft Corp. claimed this week to have seriously disrupted the group and its related botnet. GozNym made headlines in May when a joint international law enforcement operation resulted in five arrested and a further five indicted for their roles in the alleged cybercrime gang.

Twenty alleged QQAAZZ members were arrested in the U.S., Europe and Australia based on the U.S. indictments. The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement said some 40 houses were searched as part of the operation with the largest number of houses searched being in Latvia.

According to the indictment, issued following grand jury hearings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, those arrested are said to be members of a criminal network that laundered or attempted to launder tens of millions of Euros stolen since 2016.

The QQAAZZ members, acting in concert with cybercriminals across the world, are accused of conspiring to launder money stolen from victims of computer fraud in the U.S. and elsewhere. Among the allegations, those arrested are said to have communicated with clients via instant messaging, established bank accounts to facilitate their money laundering operation and used fake ID cards from countries including Poland and Bulgaria.

“Cybercrime victimizes individuals and companies all over the world, so our work to identify and disrupt cybercriminals requires global collaboration,” U.S. Attorney Scott W. Brady for the Western District of Pennsylvania said in a statement.  “For the past several years, law enforcement from 16 countries has been conducting coordinated investigations of this criminal gang and now parallel prosecutions will commence in the United States, Portugal, United Kingdom and Spain.  As this case demonstrates, we will be relentless in our pursuit of cybercriminals regardless of where they reside.”

Although joint police efforts such as “Operation 2BaGoldMule,” are welcomed in terms of trying to prevent cybercrime, it’s still killing a few flies in a swarm of millions. The reality is that for every takedown of a cybercrime gang or their related supporters, there are still millions in the swarm still operating.

Image: Europol