Online global fraud racket busted

LONDON: FBI officers recently busted a secret international website that helped fraudsters buy and sell stolen credit card details.

The site has been shut down and nearly 60 people, including 11 in Britain, have been arrested in connection with the fraud, said FBI officers.

The operations of the site was exposed after undercover FBI officers infiltrated it and spent nearly two years identifying the key users worldwide and then conducted a series of raids in UK, US, Germany and Turkey.

It was the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which led the UK arm of the global operation to expose the shady deals of DarkMarket.

Officials said on Friday that the fraudsters had been carrying on this business for the last three years. It had a membership base of around 2500 people.

The site that provide access only on invitation, used to sell personal data such as online banking details and also allowed criminals to exchange information about how to commit fraud.

SOCA termed it as "one of the most pernicious online criminal forums in the world", which helped many criminals to commit online fraud worth millions.

According to FBI estimates the scale of potential fraud and loss from the site's activities is to the tune of more than ��40m. A man was recently convicted of buying ��250,000 of personal data on the site in only six weeks, it said, estimating that the information could have been used to commit ��10m of identity fraud.

The FBI estimated the site had 2,500 registered members at its peak.