4 ms·

Three young peope of age 19, 21 and 22. I was wondering who would do something as stupid as this and think they can get away with it in UK.

popcalc 2y ago
They forgot to give the MPs their slice
michaelt 2y ago
A person could easily get the impression the UK didn't police crime online, simply because crimes like DDOS attacks, cryptolockers, cryptocurrency scams, identity theft, fake tech support callers and suchlike are all typically cross-border crimes where the police have basically no powers. The reality is the police are more than happy to act when the criminals involved can be identified, and are under their jurisdiction, and you can get the attention of the right department - that's just a very rare set of circumstances.
- Lio 2y ago
  The UK police do have powers though, accessing computer systems without permission or committing fraud is a crime in the UK regardless of geographic location under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. The Act explicitly mentions prosecution of offences committed abroad. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/contents https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/contents
  - rcxdude 2y ago
    It's just really hard to do anything useful when the perpetrators, even if identifiable, are never going to set foot in the UK nor any country which has an extradition treaty with it.
    - bradleyjg 2y ago
      Yet governments manage to act extraterritorially when its crimes they care about.
      - pixl97 2y ago
        When shit starts getting really expensive, yea. Going after scammers overseas will commonly cost in the millions per case. It's insanely expensive, and there are a lot of scammers.
        bradleyjg 2y ago
        But for drugs it’s totally worth it?
- akira2501 2y ago
  The UK police. 60% of the time we stop all crime.
fn-mote 2y ago
I was wondering if they were the fall guys for organized crime work. Their chat log (apparently) makes it clear they were independent operators, at least.
philip1209 2y ago
They probably thought it would be super niche and nobody would notice. Then, they got product-market fit and didn’t want to walk away from the money.
hilux 2y ago
[flagged]
is_true 2y ago
Most of the scammers I encountered were from the UK
alias_neo 2y ago
Here's me thinking that at that age, half way through university, I could slap together a web page that looked like it came from the 80s (in the naughts); if these guys had applied the skills used here to something decent they could have actually done well for themselves.
dspillett 2y ago
> do something as stupid as this and think they can get away with it in UK They did get away with it for two years (2019 to 2021) and the article states there are other small groups doing exactly the same thing right here right now, so it isn't that stupid to think you could get away with it if you are very careful (and at least a bit lucky) and know when to cash out & move on.
seanhunter 2y ago
If they had committed a less sophisticated crime they probably would have because in the UK there is a lot of crime that goes completely uninvestigated by the police. For example if they had gone out and stolen a motorcycle, even if that bike was fitted with a tracker that would give the police a lead as to where they were taking the bike to remove the tracker, the police would (at least in my area) not even investigate. As in just give the poor ex-bike owner a crime number for insurance via email and not visit or follow anything up at all.[1] [1] Source: I am that poor ex-bike owner and I know anecdotally my experience is not unusual. I live in a nice area and a person in my neighbourhood had the steering wheel of their car stolen (for some reason) again, the police did nothing.

popcalc 2y ago

They forgot to give the MPs their slice

michaelt 2y ago

A person could easily get the impression the UK didn't police crime online, simply because crimes like DDOS attacks, cryptolockers, cryptocurrency scams, identity theft, fake tech support callers and suchlike are all typically cross-border crimes where the police have basically no powers. The reality is the police are more than happy to act when the criminals involved can be identified, and are under their jurisdiction, and you can get the attention of the right department - that's just a very rare set of circumstances.

Lio 2y ago
The UK police do have powers though, accessing computer systems without permission or committing fraud is a crime in the UK regardless of geographic location under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. The Act explicitly mentions prosecution of offences committed abroad. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/contents https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/contents
- rcxdude 2y ago
  It's just really hard to do anything useful when the perpetrators, even if identifiable, are never going to set foot in the UK nor any country which has an extradition treaty with it.
  - bradleyjg 2y ago
    Yet governments manage to act extraterritorially when its crimes they care about.
    - pixl97 2y ago
      When shit starts getting really expensive, yea. Going after scammers overseas will commonly cost in the millions per case. It's insanely expensive, and there are a lot of scammers.
      - bradleyjg 2y ago
        But for drugs it’s totally worth it?
akira2501 2y ago
The UK police. 60% of the time we stop all crime.

fn-mote 2y ago

I was wondering if they were the fall guys for organized crime work. Their chat log (apparently) makes it clear they were independent operators, at least.

philip1209 2y ago

They probably thought it would be super niche and nobody would notice. Then, they got product-market fit and didn’t want to walk away from the money.

hilux 2y ago

[flagged]

is_true 2y ago

Most of the scammers I encountered were from the UK

alias_neo 2y ago

Here's me thinking that at that age, half way through university, I could slap together a web page that looked like it came from the 80s (in the naughts); if these guys had applied the skills used here to something decent they could have actually done well for themselves.

dspillett 2y ago

> do something as stupid as this and think they can get away with it in UK They did get away with it for two years (2019 to 2021) and the article states there are other small groups doing exactly the same thing right here right now, so it isn't that stupid to think you could get away with it if you are very careful (and at least a bit lucky) and know when to cash out & move on.

seanhunter 2y ago

If they had committed a less sophisticated crime they probably would have because in the UK there is a lot of crime that goes completely uninvestigated by the police. For example if they had gone out and stolen a motorcycle, even if that bike was fitted with a tracker that would give the police a lead as to where they were taking the bike to remove the tracker, the police would (at least in my area) not even investigate. As in just give the poor ex-bike owner a crime number for insurance via email and not visit or follow anything up at all.[1] [1] Source: I am that poor ex-bike owner and I know anecdotally my experience is not unusual. I live in a nice area and a person in my neighbourhood had the steering wheel of their car stolen (for some reason) again, the police did nothing.