More than 1,200 scam websites targeting Christmas shoppers have been shut down in an unprecedented online raid.
Experts at Scotland Yard's e-crime unit working with Oxford-based Nominet, which registers .co.uk website addresses, targeted hundreds of websites run by fraudsters in Asia hiding behind British domain names.
The websites offered discount designer goods including clothing and jewellery, but police said customers either received counterfeits or nothing at all.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said 1,219 scam websites were closed by investigators working under the code name Operation Papworth.
He said the sites offered items including Ugg boots and GHD hair straighteners as well as jewellery from Tiffany & Co and Links of London.
The spokesman said that no arrests had been made.
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