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The Dubai Police have arrested a cyber crime gang who were able to transfer more than Dh7 million from exchange companies in Dubai, a senior official from Dubai Police said, according to GulfNews


After several days of investigation the Dubai smartly tracked the gang and arrested them. The step from Dubai police has been appreciated by the world of internet. Especially, at the time when cyber crime is at it�s boom. The news for the arrest was announced by commander in chief from the Dubai police (Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina), he also told about the gang�s belonging in these words:

�The personnel of the department had arrested a multi-national gang of Asians and Africans who allegedly recruit hackers to work for them against payment of cash,� 

According to the commander in chief, the recruited hackers were involved in hacking major company�s accounts and they transferred the money in them into their own accounts. Though, Dubai was successful in seizing all the money transferred illegally.

�The department had managed to seize cheques worth nearly Dh6 billion used to defraud others, and resulted in transferring of US$2 million to the bank account of a company that belong(ed) to the suspects,� Al Mazeina said.

The procedure for this fraudulent activity was in a way that at first the gang hacked the targeted company�s email address and through it change all the details for the transactions. The details were changed to the criminal own accounts.

There were four major suspects in case: S.K, K.S, D.S and G.D.

K.S was involved in receiving in all the money that was received through fraudulent activity. He received 7 seven percent of the total money gained by the gang. S.K share in the total money was 3 percent, his role in this activity was to provide the account details of the bank account in which all the stolen was needed to be transferred, both of these suspects were from Asian region.

Through S.K police came to know about the third suspect D.S who was from African region. D.S was a middle man who transferred the messages between the gang in Africa and second suspect. According to him, the gang was involved in fraudulent of activity of Dh 4.6 billion. Furthermore, through him police got hold off the last suspect i.e. G.D. But, we again laud the efforts of Dubai police who did a fantastic job by arresting the gang.

Spanish Police have arrested a gang of 11 cyber criminals as part of Operation Ransom who allegedly ran ransomware network to demand money from thousands of victims in 30 countries using malware known as Reveton.




It�s believed the cyber criminals have managed to invest tens of thousands of computers and make a profit of over 1 million EUR ($1.34 million) per year.

Eleven individuals have been arrested as part of Operation Ransom, one of them, a 27-year-old Russian national, being suspected of developing and distributing various versions of the malware. The Russian was arrested in the United Arab Emirates. He will be extradited to Spain in the upcoming period.

In addition to apprehending the mastermind of the operation, authorities have also dismantled the group�s largest financial cell, located in Costa del Sol, Spain. Six Russians, two Georgians and two Ukrainians have been arrested by Spanish police.

During the raids on six locations in the province of M�laga, investigators seized IT equipment, and credit cards that the crooks had used to cash out the money that their victims paid via MoneyPak, Ukash, and Paysafecard.

The financial cell was in charge of laundering the money they extorted from Internet users. Virtual coins, electronic payment gateways and even online gaming portals have been used by the crooks to launder the proceeds.

The suspects have also utilized hijacked credit cards to withdraw money from ATMs located in Spain.

Since May 2011, when the ransomware was first discovered, 1,200 cases have been reported in Spain alone. However, it�s worth noting that not all victims file complaints, so it�s likely that the number of affected users is much higher.

David Benjamin - a Dutch hacker who was arrested, sentenced Friday to 12 years in prison for a computer hacking and credit card fraud scheme that left victims all over the world.

The scheme involved more than 100,000 stolen credit card numbers, which were put on the black market for stolen data, according to a press release issued by Durkan's office.

David Benjamin Schrooten, 22, also known in the hacking world as "Fortezza," pleaded guilty in November to Conspiracy to Commit Access Device Fraud and Bank Fraud, Access Device Fraud, Bank Fraud, Intentional Damage to a Protected Computer, and Aggravated Identity Theft, according to the press release.

At sentencing U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez asked him,

�I don�t think you would ever consider walking into someone�s home, pulling out a gun and robbing them� Did it ever occur to you that you were doing that to all your victims?� 

U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan said,

�By trafficking over 100,000 credit card numbers stolen by hackers, this defendant helped create the profitable black market for stolen data.�
�We will target every link of the cyber crook business model. The hacker who stole the numbers was sentenced to seven years in prison, the broker who sold them online was sentenced today to 12 years in prison, and next before the court will be the leader of a criminal gang that was using these credit card numbers for fraud.�

Federal investigators say that Schrooten worked with Christopher A. Schroebel, 21, of Keedysville, Maryland. Feds say Schroebel hacked into the point of sale computers in a restaurant in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, and a restaurant supply store in Shoreline. Schroebel was sentenced to 84 months in prison in August.

According to investigators, Schroebel had possession of at least 86,400 stolen credit card numbers, including both card numbers that he himself stole, and card numbers stolen by others.

Federal investigators say that Schroebel worked with Schrooten to build �carding websites,� that made the stolen credit card numbers available to criminals for fraud. Investigators estimate that tens of thousands of people were victimized to the tune of more than $63 million.

The Philippine police last week arrested a group of 15 Chinese women and 2 men in Makati city. This group was arrested on behalf of a fraudulent activity they carried out over the internet successfully. After week of thorough investigations the police declared this group criminals after which the Chinese police was after, according to Gulfnew.

Previously, Chinese police has contacted the Philippine unit for arresting a group which had run away from their backyard to stay away from being arrested. The Philippine police checked the suspect�s passports and immigration documents and they found them to be illegal. The immigration authorities has announced to immediately depot the criminals as soon as possible and has been charged with severe immigration offences.

�All of them could not present their passports and travel documents, thus we will deport them for being undocumented and overstaying aliens,� said an immigration official.

The fraudulent activity that the group carried out was another new form of cyber crime; the group worked over the internet as a virtual customer support for some products or services and forced them to transfer funds into their own accounts then rest was a history.

This is not the first Philippine police has arrested a group on the charges of a fraudulent activity. Previous year too, they caught a group of Tiwanese over a fraudulent activity online. According to the police, while searching the criminals they kept a strict eye over the criminals� accommodation in Philippine and then attacked them suddenly.

The Department of industry and trade has warned the entrepreneurs over the cyber hacking and have insisted them to take strict measures on it. The Philippine government has during recent times has induced some laws to curb the cyber crimes out of their country, but, there has been a number of oppositions against it. The reason behind it is the loss of freedom for the people in the country, but, it now seems that the laws are needed to be mandatory within Philippines.

U.S police force arrested three criminals who are said to be involved in the uprising of one of the deadliest virus online i.e. The Gozi virus. The Gozi virus since 2005 has affected more than 40,000 computers in the U.S. That belonged to many leading commercial and government centers, NASA is one of them. The attack was not only within U.S. but it affected many foreign countries, which included Germany, Great Britain, Poland, France, Finland, Italy, Turkey and many others .The developers of virus gained a total of $50 million illegal profits through this activity.

The investigations upon this virus began about 2.5 years back. According to an official of FBI, this should be a �wake up� call for all the people not only in U.S. but outside U.S. too. He also said:

�This case should serve as a wake-up call to banks and consumers alike because cybercrime remains one of the greatest threats we face, and it is not going away anytime soon,� Bharara the name of the official said. �It threatens individuals, businesses and governments alike.�

The official�s quoting are much to be concerned of as cyber criminals are really making the cyber world insecure  But, coming back to the investigations upon this virus there has been masses of seizing of the computer by FBI and different countries. FBI has seized such a massive data that it would take many years to analyze it. Romania which is one of affected countries has also seized 250 terabytes of data and has handed it to FBI through closure 51 servers running in the country, a FBI official said:

That vast pile of data is almost certain to aid criminal investigation at FBI offices around the country as well as law enforcement agencies around the world,� he said. �It is more than standard boilerplate to say that this investigation is very much ongoing.

Coming to the suspects of this case who were namely: Nikita Kuzmin, Mihai Ionut Paunescu, Deniss Calovskis were of really young ages i.e. 25, 28 and 27 respectively. Kuzmin was the master mind behind all this and designed the virus over the years. He can be sentenced for a maximum of 95 years imprisonment by law. Paunescu and Calovskis were minor parts of this fraud and can be sentenced for 65 and 60 years respectively.

The law enforcement agencies also seized huge amount of cash from the criminals. Especially, from Calovskis from whom police seized $50,000 which he according to him was given to put additional features into the virus.

Sony Music, the musical home of Michael Jackson, have won their legal battle against two British hackers who stole unreleased songs recorded by the music legend. Hackers were sentenced to 100 hours of community service by England's Leicester Crown Court on Friday.

Two British hackers, James Marks, Twenty seven years old  and James McCormick 26 years old  were arrested in 2011 for breaking into Sony's US Server & stealing material like completed and partial songs, videos and artwork from Michael Jackson.Other Sony Music artists were apparently targeted in the hunt but were not named.

Hackers used their home computers to search for songs recorded by the late King of Pop and downloaded close to 8,000 files.

The global recorded music company has an estimated $250 million deal to sell unreleased material from Michael Jackson, according to the Sources.

Vladimir Zdorovenin and his son, Kirill Zdorovenin, are accused of conspiring to steal the personal details, including credit card information, of several US citizens between 2004 and 2005, while residing in Russia, according to the US Department of Justice.

He used to install keyloggers on the computers of his victims. The pieces of malware allowed him to gain access to sensitive data which he used to make illegal purchases from various online businesses.

The fraudsters also transferred, or attempted to transfer, hundreds of thousands of dollars from their victims� accounts to their own accounts, which they had set up in Russia and Latvia.

They also made a profit by hacking into online brokerage accounts. The cybercriminals bought and sold thousands of shares in an effort to manipulate stock prices.