Teenagers jailed for running £20m internet crime forum
Teenagers jailed for running £20m internet crime forum | UK news | guardian.co.uk
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A group of teenagers responsible for founding and operating one of the world's largest English-language internet crime forums, described in court as "Crimebook", the criminal equivalent of Facebook, have been sentenced to up to five years in custody.
Police estimate that losses from the thousands of credit details traded over the site, Ghostmarket.net, are between £15m and £20m. The web forum, which had 8,000 members worldwide, has been linked to hundreds of thousands of pounds of registered losses on 65,000 bank accounts.
Nicholas Webber, the site's owner and founder, was first arrested in October 2009 with the site's administrator, Ryan Thomas, after trying to pay a £1,000 hotel bill using stolen card details. At the time the pair were aged just 18 and 17. Webber was jailed for five years on Wednesday, while Thomas received a four-year sentence.
After seizing Webber's laptop, police discovered details of 100,000 stolen credit cards and a trail back to the Ghostmarket website. Webber and Thomas jumped bail that December, fleeing to Majorca, but were rearrested when they flew back to Gatwick airport on 31 January 2010.
Southwark crown court was told how public-school-educated Webber, the son of a former Guernsey politician, was using an offshore bank account in Costa Rica to process funds from the frauds he was committing.
After his initial arrest, Webber threatened on a forum to blow up the head of the police e-crimes unit in retaliation, and used his hacking skills to trace officers' addresses.
Webber, whose school reports described him as lacking social skills, recruited Thomas, his "right-hand man", after they met over the web while discussing music downloads and a vacancy came up for a moderator for his criminal website.
While Webber owned and created the site, Thomas, of Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, helped delete spam and facilitated communication between criminals on the site's various web forums. A senior UK police officer described Ghostmarket as a "supermarket" for criminals.
In court, Tyrone Smith, defending, said that the site was akin to "Crimebook" and acted as a "university for criminals" where people could both learn and socialise for criminal purposes.
To users, Ghostmarket appeared as lines of computer code and broken English. On the site hackers and fraudsters from the around the world traded anonymously in compromised databases containing thousands of personal details, including bank account and pin numbers, passwords and software which would help hack into computers.
The site contained manuals such as "14 ways of hacking credit cards" and "running cards on E-bay" and information on staying anonymous as a criminal. It also sold malicious hacking software and instructions on how to manufacture crystal meth and explosives.
Gary Kelly, now aged 21, was also sentenced at Southwark court to five years for his part in the conspiracy. He helped design software which broke into thousands of computers and stole valuable personal details. Another Ghostmarket member, Shakira Ricardo, also 21, received an 18-month sentence.
In an operation codenamed Pagode, police raided Kelly's house in Swinton, Manchester, in November 2009. Police described the father-of-two's council house as "squalid", and covered in soiled clothing and dirty nappies.
Kelly ran his own web platform which hosted the Ghostmarket website. After his arrest he began co-operating with police, and provided them with a wealth of information, including the log-in codes to the website. Using that information, the police were able to unravel the website.
In mitigation, Louise Kitchin, for Kelly, said that the £43,000 Kelly made from the site was used to pay day-to-day living expenses such as bills and council tax.
The court was told that Kelly was elevated to a moderator only two days before his arrest and that he had taught himself how to use computers after leaving home when he was 15. His own computer had been self-assembled and had various keys missing. Kitchin said he had a "fascination with the mechanics of computers" and explained that he had learned how to design and rewrite computer software known as ZeusBots which could remotely control computers and steal personal information such as passwords and account details from them.
Two young women, Ricardo and 22-year-old Samantha Worley, were also involved in the conspiracy to defraud. Ricardo was described in court as a junior but nonetheless trusted member of the website. She had an "appetite to learn" the ropes of computer hacking and her ability to control fraudulent activities from her iPhone was described in court as "cutting-edge".
In conjunction with Worley, a hairdresser, Ricardo used two Halifax bank accounts to launder money from the website.
Matthew McCabe, prosecuting, said: "There are a number of people involved. There are professional hallmarks, a high level of profit, multiple victims, and the offending is over a significant period of time. The administrator and the person in full control was Mr Webber, who is an extremely experienced computer hacker. Mr Thomas was a mediator, responsible for the day-to-day running of the internet forum, and had the power to deal with the progress of the discussions.
"The Ghostmarket forum had approximately 8,000 members worldwide. It existed simply to facilitate the criminal trade in compromised credit cards, access to online bank accounts and distribution of malicious software and computer hacking tricks."
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