The leader of a website that promised to provide a “unique window for phishing” has been imprisoned for eight and a half years.
Zak Coyne, 24, headed a platform called Labost that defrauded at least millions of victims worldwide, including 70,000 in the United Kingdom, or more than £ 100 million when deceiving Theem to use payment services and shopping sites that were seen.
More than 2,000 scammers Registered to the subscription -based site, many without technical skills, and used it to bombard victims with text messages that led them to the payment sites.
Coyne, or Huddersfield, was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday after admitting three crimes related to fraud last year.
Its site, Labost, was low tasks in April 2024 After a combined operation of the law between the Metropolitan Police and the global agencies.
Between August 2021 and October 2023, Coyne played a key role in the creation, operation and administration of the site.
Labost was described as a “unique window for phishing” created “for spammers by spammers.”
For a large monthly membership rate, the website provided its subscribers access to Phishing pages to defraud the victims, who had the appearance of legitimate banking websites, government and legitimate commercials, but were false.
Using authorized Push Push fraud (app), amateur scammers could steal identity information, including 480,000 bank numbers and credit card and 64000 PIN codes, known as a criminal snake as “Fullz data.”
The criminals used the site to defraud at least one million victims in 91 countries, with the total losses of the victims for a total of £ 32 million in the United Kingdom and approximately £ 100 million worldwide. Labhost himself obtained almost £ 1 million ($ 1.25 million) in criminal earnings.
Some 25,000 of the United Kingdom victims were identified by the Police and sent text messages informing them which false online payment services and purchasing sites could have tasks of their money. The detectives said their personal data, found in a dump of tank data, were now “insured.”
After demolishing the site, the police sent a personalized video to 800 criminals who had used it, showing them the evidence they had gathered by the investigation.
Last year, 24 suspects linked to the site were tasks in custody, with a trial at Luton and Manchester airports. Throughout the world, 70 properties were sought and a British man was accused.
Commander Stephen Clayman, of the Metropolitan Police, said that the cases demonstrated the “commitment between the police to identify and retain those who tell those who facilitate criminal functions and believe that they remain without detecting. We will find it and take measures.”
Craig Rice, executive director of the Cyber Defense Alliance, said that such “cyber-service-service” platforms “as they had the ability to” allow thousands of other scammers to perform online fraud. “
Thomas Short, a specialist prosecutor of the Crown Prosecutor’s Office, emphasized that “fraud is far from being a crime without victims and the damage that was offended by Coyne’s offense is measured not only in monetary terms, but also in the anguish of the predictions of the innumerable fighters.
The activities of the gang were discovered in 2022 by a small team of researchers financed by financial organizations in the United Kingdom to infiltrate criminal networks on the dark website.
This investigation is an example of a new approach that involves the Police, the National Crime Agency and bank security experts to attack criminals who offer services to other criminals.
