British hacker who raked in £700,000 by blackmailing porn viewers
BRITAIN’S most prolific cybercriminal was jailed yesterday after making at least £700,000 by blackmailing people who viewed pornography websites.
Zain Qaiser, 24, was in league with a Russian crime gang running scams across the globe which may have made more than £4million, investigators said.
He took out adverts infected with viruses on adult sites, which would then freeze the user’s screen if they clicked on them. A message would falsely tell people they had broken the law and criminal proceedings would start if they refused to pay a fee of up to $1,000 (£767).
Qaiser funded an extravagant lifestyle, spending tens of thousands on high- end hotel stays, gambling more than £68,000 at
‘Spent cash on drugs and prostitutes’
a casino, paying for prostitutes and drugs and buying a £4,900 Rolex watch. He was treated for mental health problems in hospital and even used the wifi there to extort more money.
Jailing him for six years and five months at Kingston Crown Court, Judge Timothy Lamb told him: ‘The harm caused by your offending was extensive – so extensive that there does not appear to be a reported case involving anything comparable.
‘The prosecution estimates that millions of computers worldwide were affected by malware which you introduced to the internet.
‘Whatever your motivation for mounting these attacks on the internet, you took the opportunity to spend large sums of ill-gotten money in casinos, on an expensive watch and luxury hotel services.’
Qaiser was described as the ‘most significant’ cyber- criminal ever investigated by the National Crime Agency. Its head of cyber investigations, Mike Hulett, told the BBC: ‘The sheer volume and complexity of the actions – the number of people he is connected with worldwide and the frequency of his operation made it so successful and led to him making the money that he did. I don’t think we will ever know the true number of people who paid up.’
The crime group collected millions of pounds from victims in more than 20 countries.
Prosecutor Joel Smith told the court: ‘Whether for reasons of fear and embarrassment, because they were looking at pornography, or for simple expedience, many persons infected by the malware paid the ransom.’
Qaiser opened dozens of accounts with advertisers by pretending to be a customer. He then bought masses of adverts. ‘Companies that sought to stop the defendant from making money through malware became the subject of the defendant’s anger,’ Mr Smith said. Adopting the alias ‘K!NG’, Qaiser said he would ‘f*** up’ the sites if they didn’t approve his adverts.
Qaiser told one company director that, unless he paid up, he would ‘first kill your server, then send child porn spam’.
He was arrested on July 15, 2014 after police went to his home in Barking, East London.
The court heard that Qaiser was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in 2017.
Elizabeth Lambert, defending, said: ‘He dropped out of his degree of studying computer science due to his mental ill health. He takes responsibility for what he did. It is clear from the chat logs and conversations with others that he was part of a larger network.’
Qaiser admitted three counts of blackmail and four counts of doing an unauthorised act with intent to impair the operation of a computer between September 2012 and November 2014.
He also admitted three counts of fraud by false representation in relation to the fake advertising accounts. He further admitted money laundering while on bail.
Qaiser will return for a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act at a later date.
‘Fear and embarrassment’