U.S. SECURITY S ERVICES CHECKING OUT ONLINE GAMBLING
5 February 2010
23 ongoing investigations
According to reports in the publication The Register
this week, it was disclosed at the recent "Cybercrime in
Betting and Gaming" conference in London that security
services are conducting possible terrorism funding
investigations involving online gambling.
Apparently security service operatives are running 23
ongoing investigations into the exploitation of gambling
websites to finance terrorism.
The revelations
come after the conviction of a man described as the
"godfather of cyber-terrorism for al-Qaida" and two of
his associates two years ago in which 3 men were
convicted of inciting murder through website
exhortations.
Tariq al-Daour, Waseem Mughal and
Younes Tsouli reportedly used Windows-based Trojans to
steal information such as credit card numbers, and then
laundered the cash using Internet gambling sites.
Between them they received sentences totaling 38 years
(extended from an original 24 by the Court of Appeal).
Adding fuel to the fire were accusations that al-Daour
had been accessing 17 online gaming sites while in
Belmarsh prison! Al -Daour was also caught developing a
website urging terror attacks in his cell at Belmarsh .
When he refused to hand over his laptop a riot ensued as
prison officers clashed with a group of al-Qaeda
sympathisers. This earned him a further 10 years of
imprisonment.
It also came to light that on an
unnamed credit card company's database, all three men
came up as clients; along with 17 others whose date of
birth, nationality and first name matched the convicted
three. Together they still had 190 pre-paid credit cards
still in circulation, with balances of GBP 10 000 on
each card.
At the Cybercrime conference, Robert
Mitchell, director of World Check, gave out the
information while warning the audience that the current
investigations involved transnational groups mainly
across Denmark, Sweden, the Baltic regions, Vietnam and
China, reports The Register.
"Those are the
particular areas of risk," he said. "This is huge
business."
World-Check is a private intelligence
company which works with 49 of the world's top 50 banks
and 200 enforcement and regulatory agencies, sharing its
database of known 'heightened-risk individuals and
businesses'.
Mitchell disclosed that all told,
al-Daour and his compatriots made more than $3.5 million
in fraudulent charges using credit card accounts stolen
via online phishing scams and the distribution of
Trojans. The group conducted 350 transactions at 43
different online gambling sites, using more than 130
compromised credit cards.
Online Casino News Courtesy of
Infopowa
More news here.
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