Alleged bank hacker arrested in Thailand

Relevant offers

Digital Living

Poll: Teens migrating to Twitter Software firm seeks tech-staff with autism Historic Kiwi photographs to be digitised App of the Week: Dictionary.com Yahoo reboots Flickr with terabyte storage Should we let wunderkinds drop out? China tries to manage exposure of corruption 'We promise not to screw Tumblr up' Hands on: Google Play Music All Access Self-destruct Snapchat can be recovered

Police in Thailand say they have arrested an Algerian cybercrime suspect sought by the US FBI for allegedly making hundreds of millions of dollars by hacking banks' websites.

Immigration police chief Lieutenant General Panu Kerdlarppol said Hamza Bendelladj was arrested on January 6 during a layover at Thailand's international airport while travelling from Malaysia to Egypt. He and his family had been on vacation in Malaysia, he said.

Panu said on Monday that police confiscated two laptops, a tablet computer, a satellite phone and a number of external hard drives from Bendelladj, 24.

He said the FBI had been pursuing Bendelladj for nearly three years. US authorities believe the suspect hacked private accounts in more than 217 banks and financial companies worldwide, causing about US$10 million in losses per transaction, he said.

Panu said Bendelladj will be extradited to the US state of Georgia, where a district court has issued an arrest warrant.

- AP