Man Arrested for Running ‘Sextortion’ Scheme Against Female Victims

A man has been arrested following the federal agents' confirmation of an accusation against him that he broke into PCs for acquiring personal data. He then used the personal data for forcing teenage girls and women to provide sexually explicit movies by threatening them that their private data will otherwise be exposed.

On June 22, 2010, 31-year-old 'Luis Mijangos' of Santa Ana, California (USA) was detained, as per court documents. After raiding his house, agents unearthed several videos apparently shot from the contaminated computers' web-cams.

It appeared that Mijangos utilized P2P networks to contaminate PCs, lure victims into downloading malware online, camouflaged as songs as well as exploit those PCs for the dissemination of malicious software via contact lists.

Further, Mijangos allegedly utilized one person's compromised PC for contaminating her friends' computers. The victims reported that when they clicked on files their pals sent via Instant Messaging applications, they became infected. Apparently, once Mijangos compromised a computer, he activated its web-cam so he could shoot films of individuals near it, prosecutors alleged.

In addition, Mijangos also loaded keylogging software on victims' PCs and recorded all of their keystrokes, the affidavit stated. As operators of the hijacked PCs couldn't realize that their systems had been contaminated, they kept on conducting social and commercial activities through them.

Mijangos used the keylogging software to steal PIN and credit card details with which he committed ID theft and made illegal purchases. He even utilized stolen usernames and passwords for gaining admission into victims' social-networking accounts and e-mail to intensify the extortion campaign even more, the affidavit stated.

During the FBI raid, Mijangos is said to have admitted the charges against him. However, he stated that all his actions followed from husbands' and boyfriends' requests for the same to help them spy on their women. He further confessed that he was connected with a hackers' gang as well as played a role in payment card scam.

The prosecutors said that Mijangos allegedly contaminated over 100 PCs of about 230 users, with around 44 being juveniles.

Meanwhile, if proved guilty, Mijangos will be sentenced to federal jail for up to 2 years.

Related article: Man Sues and Wins against ISP for Spamming Mail

» SPAMfighter News - 7/2/2010