The biggest internet scams in the world

While Nigeria has been in the global spotlight in recent times over the activities of a few citizens involved in cyber fraud, history has shown that the menace is not peculiar to Nigeria.

With the growing threat posed by internet fraudsters across the world, it is important to know that cyber-attacks could come from any part of the world.

Here is a list of some of the biggest internet scams in the world:

Vladislav Horohorin

Horohorin, 30 (in 2013), a citizen of Russia, Israel and Ukraine. He was indicted in 2009 for fraud activities as a hacker and international credit card trafficker. In 2013, he was sentenced in the U.S to 88 months in prison for trafficking in millions of stolen credit and debit cards and for his role in the theft of more than $9 million dollars from an Atlanta-based credit card processor.

Noor Aziz and Farhan Arshad

Aziz and Arshad were two of the most wanted hackers by the FBI. They defrauded telecommunications companies, government agencies, and private individuals of over $50 million. In 2012, the FBI offered two $50,000 rewards for information that would lead to either of the cybercriminals’ arrest. They were arrested in 2015 in Pakistan.

Albert Gonzalez

Gonzalez was arrested in New York at age 22 for debit card fraud. To avoid jail time, he became an informant for the Secret Service. As a paid informant along with a group of accomplices, he stole more than 180 million payment card accounts from companies. In 2005, the hacker and his team stole an estimated $256 million from the American department store TJX alone.

$300 million scam by Russians and Ukrainians

In 2013, the U.S federal prosecutors charged five men responsible for hacking and credit card fraud spree that cost companies more than $300 million in what it described as the biggest cybercrime case filed in U.S. history.

The culprits: Russians Vladimir Drinkman, 32, Dmitriy Smilianets, 29 and Alexandr Kalinin, 26. Others are Roman Kotov, 32, and Mikhail Rytikov, 26 of Ukraine. They were all said to have worked with Gonzalez before his arrest, then continued with cybercrime after his capture.

Astra

Although he was never publicly identified, he was apprehended by U.S authorities in 2008, and at that time he was identified as a 58-year-old Greek mathematician who hacked into the Dassault Group (a France-based group of companies), for almost half a decade. He stole cutting edge weapons technology software and data which he then sold to 250 individuals around the world. His hacking cost the Dassault Group $360 million in damages.