Grant West has been jailed for a 10-year hacking campaign in which he stole the details of hundreds of thousands of people
A computer hacker, who stole the details of up to 78 million people to sell on the dark web, has been jailed for more than ten years today.
Grant West, 25, amassed a fortune through hacking attacks on as many as 500 firms – including Apple, Uber, Sainsbury’s, Nectar, Zoopla, Asda and Argos – to get personal data of hundreds of thousands of customers.
The cyber-criminal, who left school without a single GCSE, spent 10 years honing his hacking technique.
He learned from web tutorials teaching how to mine personal data, passwords and bank card details to sell on the dark web, where West openly boasted that he was ‘at the forefront of the fraud’.
His girlfriend Rachael Brookes, 26, was spared jail after letting her boyfriend use her laptop to launch one of his hacking attacks and using victims’ details to buy herself a £40 bikini.
In the first case of its kind, Scotland Yard managed to seize £500,000 in the crypto-currency Bitcoin from West, who also ran a cannabis farm in rented storage containers near his static caravan in the Isle of Sheppey, Kent.
CCTV showed the moment police grabbed his laptop on a train before he could lock its details
To catch the hacker, who used unbreakable encryption on his computer, undercover detectives had to follow him onto a train from North Wales to London in September last year.
One covert officer sat in a first class carriage next to West, watching him log into his laptop and get onto the dark web to access his passwords and account.
Meanwhile, a second team of police sat in a carriage behind waiting to arrest him.
The moment of his capture was caught on camera as a suited officers swooped on West, who had been returning from a trip to visit his girlfriend.
His girlfriend, Rachael Brookes, was handed a two-year community order after she pleaded guilty to unauthorised computer use
The hacker sat stunned as police snatched his computer while he was still logged on before he could encrypt his scams.
Officers were staggered to discover that the fraudster, who operated online under the name ‘Courvoisier’, after the upmarket cognac brand, had amassed details from an extraordinary range of companies worldwide.
They also included electrical good retailer AO.com, insurance firm Vitality, online clothing retailer Mr Porter, the British Cardiovascular Society, and even the Finnish Bitcoin exchange.
He stole 78 million individual usernames and passwords and 63,000 credit and debit card details from victims in the UK, America and Australia by sending out mass phishing emails apparently from legitimate companies to clients saying they had won a £10 draw and they should enter bank details for the money to be transferred.
West spent 18 hours a day selling individuals’ data for as little as £20 from his own eBay-like store on the dark web, which boasted of 47,000 sales.
He also used his victims’ air miles, fuel points and credit card details to fund gambling sprees in Las Vegas, run his £40,000 black Audi A5 coupé, and splurge on luxury household goods.
Police found £25,000 stashed in his modest caravan, but believe he could have made millions over the last decade.
West first came to police attention in 2015 after customers at Just Eat complained about phishing emails being sent to them offering customers a £10 reward for completing a survey with details of their names, addresses, email addresses, passwords and credit card CVV numbers.
Scotland Yard’s Cyber Crime Unit launched a two-year investigation, but the encryption West used proved so difficult to crack that officers had to take the unprecedented step of arresting him mid-hack on a train to unlock his computer.
It was the first time in the UK a cybercriminal has been arrested with his fingers on the keyboard.
West admitted 10 offences including computer hacking, conspiracy to defraud, possession of cannabis with intent to supply, possession of criminal property and money laundering Bitcoins.
His girlfriend was handed a two-year community order after she pleaded guilty mid-way through her trial to unauthorised use of computer material.