Online criminals moving to Italy

It seems that sunseekers aren't the online peeps moving to Italy, as a report in the MaltaMedia News says that the Italian fraud cops have discovered a major online fraud operation in Siracusa, with branches (if that's the right word) in Germany, Spain and Malta.

The mainstay activity of these fraudsters is reported to centre on the creation of cloned Web sites that pipe traffic to another site which generates revenue from dodgy activities.

In the case of the Italian fraud ring, the sites were promoting the sale of hacked cards for Sky TV.

According to the Maltese newswires, the case goes back to 2004 when a man was being investigated in a drugs-related case.

During the investigations, Italian police discovered two computers, an external hard disk and 67 smartcards ready to be used to decode pay-tv programmes. The cards, as you might expect, were advertised on t'Internet.

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S'funny - the latest reports I've read have quoted BSkyB as saying that their current card system cannot be hacked. Of course it can't... -Ed