Gambling on the Cards

This case study from Detective Constable Grahame White of New Scotland Yard focuses on credit card and identity fraud that banks and members of the public should be aware of.

When police in London conducted a search of an address in West London and arrested the occupant they did not know that he was also the unknown cyber-jihadist "Irhabi 007". "Irhabi" is the Arabic word for terrorist, and Irahabi 007 had been noticed posting vast amounts of jihadi propaganda across the internet, including gruesome videos and weapons manuals. His connection to the elusive online community was discovered when the police examined his computers and found details of compromised credit card numbers and the genuine cardholder's personal identifying details, which had been used to pay American Internet service providers on whose servers he had posted this information.

As the investigation developed police recovered two thumb drives that contained details of over 37,000 stolen credit cards. The unusual feature of the financial investigation that followed was the use of these cards to launder money using Internet gambling sites and alternative payment systems.

One method adopted was to use a stolen credit card to register an account and make an initial bet. If this bet was successful the initial sum would be repaid to the original compromised credit card and the proceeds retained. Both banks and defrauded customers may well have picked up on these transactions but given that the money was almost instantly repaid to the card they would be unlikely to take the matter any further. Neither the bank nor the customer would be disadvantaged.

The suspects would also change account details with the gambling site when the compromised credit card was no longer necessary as there was now 'clean' money to gamble with. The proceeds of further successful bets would consequently be immediately paid into an account under their control. Legitimate customers are unlikely to register with one set of account details and almost immediately change to another set. In the future both banks and gambling sites will recognise this kind of behaviour as suspicious and worthy of further investigation. Given that these transactions initially appear to be isolated it is obviously difficult to recognise their significance and hard for investigators to make the links.

Detective Constable Grahame White of New Scotland Yard is participating in a new Counter Terrorist Financing Course on Thursday 10th September 2009 in Central London. It is designed to help understand how terrorist financing works and how to combat this threat. KYC60 Community members can claim a £50 discount. Click here to learn more about the conference and how to claim your member discount.

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