Illustration: Simon Toupet/Mediapart.
Police forces with nine countries, including the United States, carried out a series of raids targeting people suspected of participating in an international fraud and money-laundering ring conducted by three different networks.
“Operation Chargeback” came four months after Drop Site News and its European partners revealed a network of apparent online scam groups, based on leaked financial documents from European payments processors WorldLine and PayOne. This was part of the “Dirty Payments” investigation, in partnership with 20 other international outlets coordinated by the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) network.
Among those now in U.S. custody is Andrew Garroni, the head of Eureka Multimedia Group and the subject of Drop Site’s investigation. Germany is seeking prosecution of Garroni for “Formation of a Criminal Organization Abroad.” Drop Site and the EIC’s investigation found that Garroni appeared to be making millions of dollars off a network of unusable dating websites. These dating sites charged the bank accounts of individuals who claimed to have never used them, and the sites were not discoverable via online search engines. In a single year, at least €90 million was processed through companies tied to Garroni.
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At the time, Garroni’s company, Eureka Multimedia Group, was reached for comment, but did not respond. When Drop Site went to their offices in June 2025, we were turned away and told they did not have an email or a phone number to provide.
The international criminal investigation was made public earlier this month by German investigators with the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the General Prosecutor’s Office in Koblenz. During a press conference on November 5th, the German Prosecutor for Koblenz confirmed to Der Spiegel that the three corporate networks investigated by the EIC—LinkMedia, iMerchant/Eureka Multimedia Group, and CECash—are the targets of this probe.
In its press release, the DoJ stated that “The United States arrested five international fugitives at the request of the Federal Republic of Germany, which has charged the individuals for their roles in a network involving German payment service processors that defrauded thousands of victims of more than €300 million and created a shadow financial system in Germany.”
On November 5th, as part of the same probe, the body that coordinates European police investigations, Eurojust, announced that individuals in the United States had been arrested, and that the international probe had been cooperating with the United States Attorney’s Office and the United States Marshals for the Central District of California. The same day, the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed that Garroni had been arrested along with two other Americans, Guy Mizrachi and Ardeshir Akhavan, and one Canadian residing in California, Tunde Benak. The unsealed complaints from the DoJ also indicate that another three individuals residing in California, Katiuska Cruz, Guy Mizrachi, and Medhat Mourid were arrested as well. Germany is also seeking to prosecute these individuals with “Formation of a Criminal Organization Abroad.”
While Garroni is most well known for his production of “erotic thriller” movies, Drop Site found that he had been implicated, but not convicted, in at least two other deceptive internet schemes in the past, one in the United States and one in the United Kingdom.
The German police described the international raids as a “coordinated action against fraud and money laundering networks,” and alleged that the suspects used “credit card data from victims in 193 countries.” The international probe thus far has searched a total of 60 properties and resulted in the issuance of 18 arrest warrants, and alleges that the accused used “fraudulently obtained credit card data” to charge victims accounts using “streaming, dating, and entertainment” websites that they controlled.In total, the BKA alleges that over 300 million Euros of fraud occurred between 2016 and 2021, victimizing 4 million individuals, with transactions charged by 500 fake companies using 2,000 fake websites to generate 19 million fake subscriptions.
The full Department of Justice complaint against Garroni, unsealed on November 7th, reveals more on the nature of his involvement. The complaint alleges that between 2016 and 2021 Garroni played a “critical role” as the CEO of FSX Holdings, a company that the DOJ alleged fraudulently obtained credit card information through phishing attacks using ad banners, internet games, fake sweepstakes, and shops. Card data was also allegedly purchased on the Darknet, where hackers are known to sell batches of personal information after data breaches.
FSX then set up shell corporations, the DOJ alleged in its complaint, disguising them as legitimate merchants; the complaint states 79 front companies tied to FSX were operating “at least 431 Internet pages.” These shell corporations are alleged to have operated fake dating websites for the purpose of facilitating “the processing of charges for which no services were ever provided.” Further, the complaint details how these sites were not discoverable via internet search engines, replicating the findings of the EIC in its previous investigations. The shell corporations allegedly generated fake internet traffic to these websites in order to deceive payment providers and financial institutions.
With credit card data in hand and a network of shell corporations, the DOJ charged that the FSX network then established Visa and MasterCard merchant processing accounts with offshore banks. Once these merchant processing accounts were created, it is alleged that FSX would then ensure that the German payments providers targeted by Operation Chargeback would onboard the fake merchants.
With all this financial plumbing set up, the complaint claims that FSX charged the stolen credit cards they had obtained for dating services through their network of shell companies. These payments were then allegedly funneled back into the FSX network, specifically through a company called FSX Holdings based out of Florida.
The complaint names Garroni as the CEO of FSX Holdings. A search of Florida’s online business records shows that, in addition to Garroni, FSX holdings has another officer as well, a man named David J. Peterson, who acts as its manager. Peterson is not named in the DoJs complaint or in any other releases related to Operation Chargeback.
Garroni’s family and company, Eureka Multimedia Group, did not respond to a request for comment. David J. Peterson, the other officer of FSX Holdings similarly did not provide a response.
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