Interpol arrested 25 members of the ‘Anonymous’ hacker group in over a dozen cities worldwide the police body said on Tuesday.
“Operation Unmask was launched in mid-February following a series of co-ordinated cyber-attacks originating from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain,” Interpol said.
According to Interpol’s statement, the group targeted the Columbian Ministry of Defence’s and presidency’s websites. Other targets included Chile’s Endesa electricity company and its National Library.
Police from Argentina, Columbia, Spain and Chile carried out the operation. Over 250 pieces of computer equipment and mobile phones seized in raids on 40 premises in 15 cities. Credit cards and cash were also seized from suspects aged between 17 and 40.
“This operation shows that crime in the virtual world does have real consequences for those involved, and that the internet cannot be seen as a safe haven for criminal activity,” Interpol’s acting director of police services, Bernd Rossbach, said.
Trawling through computer logs, tracing IP addresses netted ten suspects in Argentina, six in Chile and five in Colombia, Spanish police said.
They said one of the suspects went by the nicknames Thunder and Pacotron and was suspected of running the computer network used by Anonymous in Spain and Latin America, via servers in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. He was arrested in Malaga, Spain.
Anonymous took credit on Thursday for an online raid on the Los Angeles Police Canine Association and previously attacked websites of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Nico Gous
