Blackmailer of Bitcoins Pleads Guilty of his Crime

Finextra.com reported during first week of September 2014 that a 22 year old hacker, Lewys Martin, has pleaded guilty of blackmailing by threatening to disclose the personal details of thousands of phished Lloyds bank accounts holders, unless he was paid a ransom of 270,000 Pounds in bitcoins.

In May 2013, Martin contacted Lloyds Bank threatening to disclose the personal details of 28,000 Lloyds Bank account holders to The Sun newspaper and demanded one bitcoin for every ten accounts that he was having on a memory card.

At the time of his arrest, Martin was found to be possessing 3 malware-based phishing programs for stealing the personal details and compromised banking data. Besides, many indecent photos of children were also found that were not related to this investigation of blackmailing.

Finextra.com reported during first week of September 2014 quoting Jason Tunn, Detective Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit, as saying "Martin could not break the bank's security systems but instead decided to target his phishing activity at retail customers. I would like to remind public to remain safe online and seek advice from GetSafeonline.org for more security and safety."

Martin started committing computer related offences from the age of 20 in 2012. He was jailed for 18 months for spreading a Trojan Horse posing as a popular Call of Duty computer game, which logged keystrokes and stole banking details and passwords.

According to the local news reports, he faced charges again in November 2012 for launching DDoS attacks on websites of Oxford and Cambridge University, as well as on the website of local Kent police force that had gone offline for more than an hour. He finally pleaded guilty to DDoS charges in April 2013, and was jailed for another 2 years in May 2013 by which time he seemed to be doing his next crime for which he was due for another sentence in December. All in all it's a story of gradually increasing crime. Presently, Martin is in custody, and will return to court for the sentencing on 16th October, 2014.

» SPAMfighter News - 9/20/2014