Eight arrested in Birmingham, Coventry and Smethwick in online fraud sting

The National Crime Agency arrested a suspect during raids in Grimsby on Tuesday

Eight people have been arrested and computers, cash and drugs seized as part of an international operation to stop a criminal online marketplace.

Four warrants were executed in Birmingham, Coventry and Smethwick over two days where officers recovered £30,000 of suspected criminal cash.

Genesis Market sold login details, IP addresses and other data sometimes for less than $1.

Law enforcement agencies across 17 countries made arrests this week.

The international operation was co-ordinated via the FBI, Dutch National Police and National Crime Agency (NCA) and led to the marketplace - one of the world's biggest - being taken offline.

Globally, 200 searches were carried out and 120 people were arrested.

The marketplace was set up in 2017 and became a one-stop shop to buy login data with passwords for Facebook, PayPal, Netflix, Amazon, eBay, Uber and Airbnb accounts for sale.

Criminals buying the information were even notified by Genesis if the passwords changed, detectives said.

West Midlands Police said its regional cyber crime team carried out its warrants which saw six men and two women - aged between 21 and 43 - arrested on suspicion of fraud.

Twenty-four people who were suspected users of the site were arrested by the NCA and included two men aged 34 and 36 in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, who were held on suspicion of fraud and computer misuse.

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