A student who made hundreds of thousands of pounds blackmailing pornography website users with cyber attacks has been jailed. Zain Qaiser from Barking, London, used his programming skills to scam visitors to pornography sites around the world. Investigators have discovered about £700,000 of his profits - but his network may have made more than £4m.
Qaiser, 24, was jailed for more than six years at Kingston Crown Court. The court heard he is the most prolific cyber criminal to be sentenced in the UK. Judge Timothy Lamb QC said: "The harm caused by your offending was extensive - so extensive that there does not appear to be a reported case involving anything comparable."
His jail sentence of six years and five months is a second major success for the National Crime Agency (NCA) after the jailing earlier this year of a British man who broke an entire nation's internet.
Qaiser initially denied the crimes and claimed he had been hacked, before pleading guilty to 11 charges - including blackmail, fraud, computer offences and possessing criminal property. The ransomware offences were committed between 2012 and 2014.
