Blast writes Eastern mobsters target Australians online

Dale Paget, AAP
May 26, 2004

Australians are being targeted by Eastern European organised crime families using the Internet to extort and steal far from home.

Delegates at the annual AusCERT Asia Pacific Internet Security Conference on the Gold Coast were warned today that mobsters were hiring computer programmers to take their brand of criminal activity online.

The deputy head of Britain's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, Superintendent Mick Deats, said one Eastern European syndicate with interests in prostitution, drugs and gun smuggling was also earning money all over the world from internet credit card fraud, software piracy, child pornography and online extortion.

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