© ANP / Richard Brocken
The Mechelen criminal court has found three men guilty in a case of cybercrime and hacking. They had broken into several computers using illegal software. One man received a one-year suspended prison sentence, two others received community service.
The investigation started in 2019 when the Belgian police received information from Australian investigators that there were fellow countrymen who had software to unknowingly take over other people’s computers. “They could unknowingly put on the microphone or camera of a laptop or computer. Without the victim knowing anything about it. This also allowed them to see nude images of their victim when the computer was in the bathroom or bedroom, for example,” the federal prosecutor said. “But the system also registered keystrokes so that cybercriminals could easily obtain victims’ passwords and use accounts.”
The federal public prosecutor emphasized that this was a completely illegal system. “It was comparable to Teamviewer, where you let someone else take over your computer. But with Teamviewer this is done with the user’s permission. In this case, the victims knew nothing.”
34 buyers
The Belgian investigators received a list of 34 buyers of the illegal software and 16 IP addresses of people who were working on it.
During the investigation it turned out that the main suspect ML had caused hundreds of victims. “To even more than 1,300,” the prosecutor said. “He looked for login details, license keys and also logged into Paypal accounts with which he also stole money.”
Another man, BG, played games via the victims’ computer using illegal software and was also able to log in to Netflix. DD from Zoersel is said to have caused no victims, but turned out to be the reseller of the software, according to the federal public prosecutor’s office.
The four others, including people from Nijlen and Olen, were acquitted. For some, the facts were also outdated. ML was deferred for a year. BG and DD returned home with community service.