Police inthe Netherlands and Belgium said this week they had broken up an internationalinvestment-fraud operation that ran roughly 20 call centers and more than 700people posing as financial advisers, an organization that at its peak took inan estimated €100 million (about $114 million) a month. Six peoplehave been arrested, and investigators say the central figure is a 46-year-olddual Israeli-Polish national with a long history in the hacking world.The mainsuspect was detained at a Polish airport on May 26 as he arrived from Dubai,then handed to the Netherlands, where a judge ordered him held for 14 dayspending trial. Dutchpolice said he had been prosecuted before for breaking into the computersystems of foreign government bodies.An Operation Run Like aCompanyThe networkhad been active since at least 2021 and was built to resemble a legitimatebusiness, police said. One head office managed the branches spread acrossseveral countries, each with teams assigned to a specific target market.The scaleis large even by the standards of Europe's boiler rooms, the industrializedcall-center scams that FinanceMagnates.com has tracked through leaked recordingsand internal data.Police link about 550 complaints in the Netherlands and another 200 in Belgiumto the group, and believe the worldwide victim count runs into the tens ofthousands.Dutchvictims alone lost close to €25 million, most of them more than €10,000 each,according to police. Henrique van Huisstede of the Midden-Nederland police toldbroadcaster RTL the network was "responsible for a significant portion ofall investment fraud in the Netherlands."The Hacker Police Won'tNameDutchpolice did not release the suspect's name, describing him only as a well-knownhacker who was, in their words, "no stranger to the cyber world."That reticence has not stopped the identification from spreading.Thenewspaper De Telegraaf and the English-language outlet NL Times identified theman as Ehud "Udi" Tenenbaum, a 46-year-old dual national long knownin hacking circles as "The Analyzer." Police, however, have notconfirmed the name.Ehud Tenenbaum (46) spil in mega-beleggingsfraude met miljoenen schade: meesteroplichter opereerde met honderden medewerkers in dienst https://t.co/Pc8UpgU8h7— De Telegraaf (@telegraaf) July 15, 2026If thatreporting is correct, it would put a figure from the early history of computercrime at the center of the case. Tenenbaum drew international attention in1998, when a teenage break-in later dubbed Solar Sunrise hit systems at thePentagon, NASA and the US military, an intrusion American officials at firstfeared was a state-backed attack.A decadelater he surfaced again, arrested in Canada in 2008 and extradited to theUnited States over a scheme prosecutors tied to about $10 million stolen fromUS banks and card processors. He pleaded guilty in 2012 and was sentenced totime served plus restitution. The age,nationality and record cited by Dutch reporters match that public trail, thoughnone of it has been confirmed by authorities in this case.‼️ BREAKING: Dutch and Belgian police have dismantled an international crypto investment fraud network run like a company: roughly 20 call centers, 700+ "employees" and an estimated take of more than €100 million per month. Six suspects have been arrested across Poland, Cyprus,… pic.twitter.com/8r1oiPH5GP— International Cyber Digest (@IntCyberDigest) July 15, 2026The groupused pseudonyms and technical tricks to hide identities and locations, the kindof concealment that has frustrated European investigators in other takedowns.Europe's Boiler-Room BustsKeep GrowingEuropeanpolice have been pulling these call-center networks apart at a steady clip, andthe totals keep climbing. In November, Cypriot, French and Belgian authorities arrested seven people over a Limassol operation said tohave turned over close to €1 billion in five years.A monthlater, a Europol-coordinated action broke up a network accused of laundering morethan €700 million, one that leaned on deep-fake celebrity ads to reel invictims.Spanishinvestigators dismantled a €460 million ring earlier in 2025, part of a run ofcases that stretched from the Canary Islands to shell companies in Hong Kong.An olderGerman case reached €89 million across roughly 33,000 victims. TheDutch-Belgian network stood out for its pace rather than its headline total, anestimated €100 million a month at its peak, run by a payroll of more than 700that made it look closer to a mid-sized company than a back-room scam.How the Money DisappearedTheplaybook, as police describe it, changed little from earlier schemes. So-calledadvisers spent weeks or months building a rapport with targets, often by phone,before steering them toward what looked like a professional trading platform.Firstdeposits were small and appeared to turn a quick profit. The dashboards victimslogged into looked convincing, but no money was ever invested. As trustgrew the sums grew with it, much of it moved in cryptocurrency, until the fundssimply landed with the operators. The small-deposit, fake-profit hook has beena fixture of these frauds for years, Europol has noted in earlier cases.Forvictims, the collapse was abrupt. One Dutch victim, identified only as Alex,said that when he tried to withdraw, "all contact was suddenly cutoff." He described the moment he understood the savings were gone aswatching the life he had planned come apart.A Second Scam Aimed at theSame VictimsThere is asting in the tail. Police warned that victims who pull out are sometimesapproached by a so-called recovery firm promising to claw back their money foran upfront fee, an outfit that in many cases belongs to the same criminalgroup.Thatdouble-dip is a well-worn tactic. Spanish police last year described a gangthat hit the same victims three times, posing first as investmentmanagers, then as recovery agents, then as officials demanding tax beforereleasing funds.For now,Dutch prosecutors have the alleged organizer in custody on a 14-day detentionorder and say more arrests may follow. The financial investigation, includingefforts to trace and freeze assets, is still going on.This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.