Law enforcement officers have arrested six people in the UK and 12 in the US in an FBI-led sting operation that netted a total of 24 credit card cyber fraudsters in 13 countries.
The arrests follow a two-year undercover FBI investigation that tracked those buying and selling credit card information through a fake online forum,according to the BBC.
As a result of Operation Card Shop,investigators have notified credit card providers of more than 400,000 compromised accounts,preventing an estimated 131m pound in losses.
All of those arrested are men aged between 18 and 25 from the US,Europe,Asia and Australia.Some face 40 years in prison if convicted on fraud-related charges.
One of the men,Mir Islam,has been charged with trafficking in 50,000 stolen credit card numbers.
Computer criminals operating behind the supposed veil of the internet are still subject to the long arm of the law
Preet Bharara,US district attorney
Authorities said Islam had admitted to helping hacker group UgNazi,which claimed to have launched a cyber attack against the microblogging service Twitter last week,according to the Guardian.
US district attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement:"Clever computer criminals operating behind the supposed veil of the internet are still subject to the long arm of the law."
