Russian authorities have arrested alleged members of a gang of "cyberfascists" accused of using Android malware to drain victims' bank accounts.
According to Forbes, a man thought to have created the malware has been picked up along with four others and a collection of mobile phones and SIM cards. All five have confessed.
Security firm Group IB, which worked with Russia's Ministry of Internal affairs and Sberbank to help catch the crooks, says the hackers - who named their software “The Fifth Reich” and used Nazi symbols in the management system - first put their malware out into the wild in 2013.
It was distributed via texts containing fake links to Adobe Flash Player. The software has since gone through several iterations, at one point tricking victims into handing over credit card details by opening up a new window from Google Play and asking for the information.
Later, the crooks created phishing sites for Russian and Ukrainian banks, this time tricking victims into typing their online account logins and passwords, which were captured and used to make payments.
Some 350,000 Android devices were infected last year, with close to $1 million stolen from Russians, says Forbes, which notes that the gang was also increasingly focussing on American victims, often using Ransomware.