Identity thieves caught by US authorities

A global computer hacking and credit card fraud ring spanning the US, eastern Europe and Asia was uncovered by American authorities.

11 people from the US, China and three former Soviet republics were accused of stealing more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers and selling them to criminals in the US and Europe.

Investigation on the case involving law enforcement authorities from at least four countries lasted for three years. According to US attorney general Michael Mukasey the financial loss in the case is "impossible to quantify at this point".

Justice department officials and court documents report that members of the ring drove close to US retail stores in search of wireless internet connections on which they installed "sniffer" software that would record card numbers.

After this the criminals sold the numbers over the internet to individuals who encoded them on blank credit cards and withdrew tens of thousands of dollars at a time from cash machines.