An alleged hacker, suspected by the FBI of stealing millions of dollars from online bank accounts, has been arrested by Thai police and paraded in front of the world's media.
24-year-old Hamza Bendelladj, an Algerian national, was detained this weekend at Bangkok's Suvarnnabhumi airport, as he was in transit from Malaysia to Egypt.
Bendelladj, was brought out handcuffed and beaming broadly in front of TV cameras, seemingly untroubled by the FBI's claims that he hacked into customer accounts at 217 banks and financial companies around the world.
The Bangkok Post reports that a smiling Bendelladj denied claims made by the Thai authorities that he was on the FBI's top-10 most wanted list:
"I'm not in the top 10, maybe just 20th or 50th," the Algerian suspect said with a laugh. "I am not a terrorist."
Here's an NTDTV video report from the press conference:
Two laptops, a tablet computer, a satellite phone and a number of external hard drives were confiscated by police from Bendelladj.
Immigration police chief Pharnu Kerdlarpphon was reported as saying that Bendelladj had claimed he spent his riches living a life of luxury:
"With just one transaction he could earn 10 to 20 million dollars... He's been travelling the world flying first class and living a life of luxury."
Officials in Thailand have said that Bendelladj will be extradited to the United States as soon as possible.
One wonders if he will find that quite so amusing.
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"You can run, but you can't hide!"
"We WILL get you, it's not IF it's simply WHEN!"
Smiling at the cost of innocent people's money.
lets see how he likes the good life in jail for the next 20 years.
Face of cybercrime
"24-year-old Hamza Bendelladj, an Algerian national, was detained this weekend at Bangkok's Suvarnnabhumi airport, as he was in transmit from Malaysia to Egypt."
Wow...in transmit...he must be SOME hacker! ;-)
Oops.. fixed. :)
Does anyone really think he'll do hard time? A young, smart good-looking guy like him? The system just won't allow it.
In a couple of years we'll be seeing hiim on "60 Minutes" explaining how he committed his crimes, while the reporter glowingly describes how he's turned his life around, showing us the mansion where he lives with his beautiful girlfriend as he runs a thriving international information security consulting business.
You bet. He probably earned himself a top security job for some alphabet soup agancy in our government.
He got caught, and he's HAPPY?
Sheesh...what kind of software is Mr. Bendelladj running on his neural net?
I dunno...but either he's a mental case, or else maybe he figures that his future will turn out pretty much the way ITGuy's post (above) predicts. He might well be right.
</cynic_mode>
He should go to work for one of those "Too Big To Jail" Wall Street banks, where stealing is not only legal, but encouraged.