Latvians arrested for massive cyber-scam

RIGA -- Two Latvians have been arrested following an international investigation into a cyber-scam that netted nearly one million victims' credit card information.

The two men reportedly stole around $72 million from 960,000 people around the world.

The "scareware" scam involved a pop-up internet message claiming the target computer was already infected and offering an anti-virus program to fix the problem. The anti-virus contained the real threat, which was then used to steal credit card information.

The operation to arrest the men was a joint effort by the FBI, Ukrainian intelligence services, and police from the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Cyprus and Latvia.

Two more Latvians, aged 22 and 23, were simultaneously arrested in the rural Latgale region in connection with a second scam -- placing fake ads -- that brought in around $2 million.