European police agency Europol announced on Friday that it had arrested 118 people accused of using fraudulent credit cards to buy plane tickets. The arrests mostly happened at airports around the world on Thursday and Wednesday. The operation relied heavily on cooperation from bank networks like Visa and MasterCard, 60 airlines, 80 airports, and 45 law enforcement agencies around the world.

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A press release from Europol noted that authorities “targeted criminals suspected of fraudulently purchasing plane tickets online using stolen or fake credit card data.” Throughout the two-day operation, representatives from airlines and credit card companies were present in a coordination center run by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), where airlines identified tickets that might have been made fraudulently. Then, “using their own financial data systems, credit card company officials confirmed suspicions when alerted by the airlines,” Europol wrote.

The European police agency sent alerts to airport police who then “detained suspects attempting to travel using fraudulently obtained flight tickets." In order to identify the suspects as well as any possibly stolen travel documents they were carrying, Europol analysts "provided live access to centralized criminal intelligence databases."

Europol also said that many of the arrested people who were suspected of purchasing fraudulent tickets were also tied to “drug trafficking and human trafficking,” and some were repeat offenders. But financial security blog Bank Info Security suggested that many of the arrested suspects were likely low-level couriers or drug mules within larger organized crime rings.

Still Europol maintains that the big advance this week was executing an operation with the cooperation of several industry stakeholders and building a “global alliance of airlines and law enforcement agencies who will be working together on an ongoing basis to combat online fraud and crime.”

Beyond the arrests this week, the coordinated action reflects the airline industry's reliance on banks to accurately verify credit cards, especially with respect to online ticket purchases. Meta Backman, from the European Airlines Fraud Prevention Group, said that “Airlines are depending on card issuing banks to obtain confirmation of fraudulent use of credit cards. Without confirmation, airlines cannot report the crime to law enforcement.” But, that's something that banks have struggled to do effectively and without inconveniencing their legitimate customers.