Teenager held in £12.5m web fraud raid

Police in New Zealand are questioning an 18 year-old man over allegations that he masterminded a multimillion pound online crime syndicate.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is alleged to have organised the infection of over a million PCs in Holland with key-logging software that collected bank account details.

Police claim that a staggering £12.5m was siphoned out of victims' accounts.

"We have seized a number of computers and our investigations are focusing on the one seized from the 18 year-old,'' Detective Inspector Peter Devoy said in an interview with Bloomberg.

"It just goes to show that when you step into the cyber-world it knows no boundaries.''

The teenager, who operated under the online name 'Akill', is also accused of infecting 50,000 PCs at a Philadelphia university.

The investigation was coordinated by Dutch police, the FBI and the New Zealand authorities following an 18-month probe by the FBI into the use of viruses in online banking fraud.

The teenager, who is still at school, was described as "very bright and gifted".

"He is a young guy but I think it is an environment that the young understand a lot better,'' said Detective Inspector Devoy.

"This is a relatively new type of crime that will only become more evident as time goes by.''

See also:

Spammers hack Al Gore's climate site

Attack shows interesting Google hacking technique  28 Nov 2007

Phishing causing real harm to brands

Attacks having a detrimental effect on reputation  26 Nov 2007

McAfee warns of typo-squatting epidemic

Old trick still haunting the web  23 Nov 2007

HMRC data blunder to cost at least £500m

Gartner warns of 'enormously expensive' emergency measures  22 Nov 2007

Security experts forecast stormy 2008

No let up from malware, warns MessageLabs  20 Nov 2007

Companies warned over DoJ spam

Attachment contains nasty Trojan  21 Nov 2007

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