FBI Arrested New Zealand Hacker & Put Him Behind Bars

After scamming several lakhs of dollars that drew the notice of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) to New Zealand, a 22-year-old computer hacker from east Auckland has been ultimately caught and is now serving the prison for a term of three years.

Thomasz Grygoruk was sentenced to jail on charges of five instances of blackmail, computer and document fraud when he presented himself in the Auckland High Court on May 23, 2008.

Investigations revealed that Grygoruk circulated an online scam for five years to capture people's personal details to create fake ATM cards with which he withdrew as much as $300,000.

Investigation results articulated before the jury also indicated that Grygoruk managed to enter an American teacher's e-mail account in Pennsylvania to threaten that if the teacher didn't pay US$10,000, his covert association with a pupil would be disclosed. Grygoruk had threatened that he would tell the local newspaper and police that the teacher was a child abuser was and was engaged in a romantic affair with his student.

According to reports, the teacher contacted the FBI whose agent, disguised as an accountant of the teacher, later traced Grygoruk to his New Zealand address. The FBI then sent a representative to New Zealand last year (2007) to sort out the case.

According to reports, when Grygoruk was scamming on the Internet for over five years and during that period, he created fake bank Websites as well as distributed thousands of junk e-mails to people inviting them to give their private information including PIN and credit card numbers. While the victims thought they were providing their information to the bank, Grygoruk used the captured data to create counterfeit electronic cards to eventually withdraw cash of $200,000-$300,00 from ATM machines.

At the time the case was being heard in the Auckland High Court, Simon Mount, the Crown Prosecutor, said that Grygoruk had engaged in a sophisticated crime that involved intricate planning. ZDNet Australia published this in news on May 26, 2008.

Mount also said that the offense, however, had mitigated reasonably as Grygoruk confessed to the authorities some of his computer scams that would have otherwise remained undetected.

Related article: FBI’s ICCC Annual Report Discusses Fraudulent and Non-Fraudulent Complaints

» SPAMfighter News - 6/2/2008