Bookies applaud online extortion racket arrests

The arrests of the ringleaders of an online extortion racket that threatened to take down websites unless a ransom demand was paid have been welcomed by the UK betting industry.

The National Hi-Tech Crime Unit worked with Russian police on the investigation, which led to the arrest of three men in St Petersburg, Saratov and Stavropol yesterday. The men face charges of money laundering, blackmail and extortion under Russian cybercrime laws.

The men were traced after police tracked payments to the gangs – 10 people were arrested in Latvia last year over cash transfers. One UK betting firm was advised by the NHTCU to pay the ransom to help the police establish a trail that went from the UK to the Caribbean, Latvia and Russia.

The ransom demands and distributed denial of service attacks (DDos) against online bookmakers in the UK were often timed around big sporting events when large numbers of people would be trying to place bets online.

Some of the firms privately expressed relief when speaking to silicon.com today although many still do not want to be publicly associated with the attacks for fear of attracting new protection demands.

But William Hill, which suffered from one DDoS attack in March this year, welcomed news of the arrests.

David Hood, spokesman for William Hill, said in a statement: "We have been working closely with the NHTCU and its international counterparts to provide as much information and help as we can, and we applaud the efforts of everyone who was involved in this operation. Fortunately we only suffered minimal financial loss of business from the one attack launched on us, and none in terms of the ransom payouts."

Hood said the firm had also invested in technology to combat the attacks. Earlier this year another bookmaker who wished to remain anonymous told silicon.com it had cost his firm £100,000 to put the appropriate network defences in place.

The NHTCU said further arrests are expected to follow.