eBay scam gang behind bars

One of the world's most successful identity theft gangs are now behind bars, reports The Times. Using cloned credit cards, they defrauded bank account holders across Europe and America, buying up expensive electrical items and then selling them on eBay. They also used the stolen cards to pay cash into their own Paypal accounts, which was later banked.

International police forces collaborated to catch the gang, but in a move worthy of the A-Team, much of their evidence was lost when a handcuffed gang member managed to jump up to the ceiling to flick a power switch, triggering layers of encryption on the gang's computer system, which still defies experts' best efforts to decode it.

The gang is thought to have been in operation for more than a decade, though the prosecution relates only to the period June 2003 to January 2005, during which they managed to pocket more than £750,000. The true extent of their illegal operations will probably never be known, said the prosecutor.