Cops smash cyber crime rings with 1.7m victims

The investigations, believed to involve more than 300,000 offenders world-wide, are among 24 complex cases recently handled by the 11-man Birmingham-based squad – dubbed cybercops.

They range from lone wolf students bringing down college websites to organised gangs trading stolen credit card details and malware on the Dark Web.

The news comes as official figures confirm that online crime now claims as many victims as 'conventional' lawbreaking in the UK.

Among the latest cons is Ransomware where the criminal hacks into a computer, encrypts its contents, changes the passwords and does not reveal them until the owner pays a ransom for the information.

The Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) cyber team, that also includes officers from Warwickshire and West Mercia, recently played a key role in the arrest of a dozen people suspected of using web-crippling Netspoof stresser software to flood and wreck computer systems.

They also brought teenage hacker Grant Manser to justice last year. He pocketed £50,000 in four years from the age of 16 selling malware on the Dark Web to almost 4,000 people who used it to flood websites with unwanted information, causing up to 250,000 to crash.

The search covered suspects across the UK, Europe and USA before leading to the Kidderminster home of the brains behind the operation.

Another student ended up behind bars for four months when tracked down by the ROCU team after hacking into an exams grading system at the Birmingham University to ensure he got higher marks.

Other inquiries are still 'live' and so details are being kept secret until the investigations have been completed.

Detective Inspector Rob Harris, who leads the specialist team, revealed: "The bulk of our work can lead our detectives to all corners of the globe hunting creators of malware and people who buy it to attack computer networks.

"One current investigation has seen police raid addresses in the United States linked to a suspected malware developer, the arrest of two people in Israel and two further arrests in the UK.

"Cyber crime is probably the biggest challenge facing policing in a generation but we are adapting to that challenge by training highly-skilled digital detectives, raising awareness of cyber security and scoring notable success in bringing down cyber criminals.

"For the first time last year the Office of National Statistics included fraud and cyber crime in its annual survey and it revealed there were as many victims of this new categorisation as there were traditional offences."

West Midlands Police aim to give all its officers cyber crime training in the near future and are taking on a tech-focused crime prevention officer.

Teenage hacker Manser admitted ten charges under the Computer Misuse and Serious Crime Acts and was handed a suspended prison sentence.

DI Harris observed: "I think the criminal justice system is still getting its head around the seriousness of cyber crime and how to effectively punish offenders.

"Cyber crime doesn't bang and it doesn't bleed. It is considered a white collar crime and perhaps sentences are reflecting that.

"But there have been cases of people who have been personally affected by hacking - maybe blackmailed over explicit images - and victims who have taken their own life due to the stress and threats made against them. That is how serious it can be."