Interpol has announced that 25 suspected Anonymous hackers have been arrested by the the agency from allover South America and Europe.
Interpol announced the news in a press conference, that the suspected hackers were arrested from Argentina, Spain, Chile and Colombia. All the suspects were arrested by the law enforcement officers of respective countries as the Interpol has no right or power to arrest or investigate any suspect whatsoever. Interpol however can provide all the details and assistance to the law enforcement agency of that country.
All the arrested members are between the age group of 17 to 40, Interpol believe that the arrested members belong to Anonymous and coordinated hacking attacks on local, international, presidential and defense ministry of Colombia website.
Interpol said that the investigation started in the mid-February and 40 premises in 15 cities were searched and loads of IT equipment, credit cards and mobile phones have been taken under custody.
In Chile’s capital, Subprefect Jamie Jara said at a news conference that ”Authorities arrested five Chileans and a Colombian. Two of the Chileans are 17-year-old minors”.
The case was being handled by prosecutor Marcos Mercado, who specializes in computer crime. He said the suspects were charged with altering websites, including that of Chile‘s National Library, and engaging in denial-of-service attacks on websites of the electricity companies Endesa and Hidroaysen. The charges carry a penalty of 541 days to five years in prison, he said.
Jara also said ”The arrests resulted from a recently begun investigation and officials do not yet know if those arrested are tied to any “illicit group, for now, we have not established that they have had any special communications among themselves”
Authorities also blocked two servers which were used by the hackers, both of the servers belongs to Bulgaria Czech Republic.
Ten suspects are arrested from Argentina but there has been no government statement over this issue, the only statement that came up was from local media website, which said that 10 members are in custody from Argentina.
Back in Europe, four suspects are in custody and authorities believe that four members are among the planners and coordinators of hacking and defacing Spanish political party’s website and several other government domains. The four suspects are among the twenty five members that are in custody of respective authorities.
While shockingly Interpol website is down since the announcement of arrests was made public. At the time this article was written, the Interpol’s website was still down. The reason remains unknown, Yet it can be expected that website may have been taken down as a retaliation attack by Anonymous hackers.
Screen Shot of Interpol website, which shows that website can not be found:
However, there has been a response from Anonymous where a witter account associated with Anonymous’ Brazilian squad has said that the Interpol operation will go in vein.
“Interpol, you can’t take Anonymous,” the message read. “It’s an idea.”
Stay with HackRead for more updates on Anonymous crackdown.
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