Web geeks jailed for £6.5m fraud network
Two computer geeks who masterminded a £6.5m fraud network stretching from ex-KGB agents in Russia to hackers in America, have been jailed as the first people in Britain to peddle credit card data over the internet.
Douglas Havard, 24 and Lee Elwood, 25, were tracked down in Leeds and Glasgow after an investigation by the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit foiled their global scam.
Starting in Russia, their fraudulent network recruited conmen to send spoof e-mails in an attempt to coax people’s credit card details, under the guise of updating accounts or fixing a payment error.
The conmen bombarded global mail accounts with their phishing e-mails, after handing their catch of credit card data to Harvard and Elwood, in return for 60 per cent of any profits made.
According to The Times, both men were members of now-defunct web forums which advised people how to obtain ‘data dumps’ of stolen credit card numbers and turn them into clones of genuine cards.
Havard, the son of a rich millionaire in Dallas, would then reportedly locate blank credit cards bearing in mind the efforts of his Russian colleagues, and subsequently download the data to produce a seemingly genuine credit card.
