Sunday, October 5, 2008

Israeli Hacker in Multimillion-dollar Online Fraud

The United States is seeking the extradition of an Israeli hacker known as "The Analyzer" from Canada. He is believed to be the mastermind of a multimillion-dollar worldwide online fraud.

Ehud Tenenbaum is aged 29.He was arrested in late August over charges relating to a $1.8-million theft from a Calgary financial institution. While he was granted bail last week, he was arrested again on a provisional warrant under the Extradition Act before he could post the required $30,000 bail.

Canwest News Service reported on Friday that Court of Queen's Bench Justice Bryan Mahoney denied Tenenbaum bail on the U.S. charges. The court heard on Friday that the allegations against Tenenbaum involved potentially hundreds of financial institutions in Russia, Turkey, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Germany and other countries.

"Mr. Tenenbaum is alleged by the government of the U.S. to be one of the principal hackers, if not the mastermind, of their entire global operation," Canwest quoted federal Crown prosecutor David Gates as arguing.

"Mr. Tenenbaum and others did the actual hacking into financial institutions to obtain [debit and credit] card PIN numbers, and then sold them to others in their operation."

The U.S. government now has 60 days to submit an extradition order to have him taken back to face the charges, according to Canwest. Canada's justice minister then has 30 days to decide whether or not an extradition hearing can take place.

Mr.Tenenbaum is quite a renowned man and not any 'roadside-chap' as you would think. He was earlier sentenced to 15 months in jail in Israel in 1998 for hacking into the Pentagon computer system in the U.S.

Source: Ha'aretz, Tel Aviv, Israel

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