Notorious Moroccan Hacker Arrested in Thailand

Rabat- Farid Essebar, a notorious Moroccan-Russian hacker wanted by the authorities in Switzerland, was arrested on Tuesday by Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI) in Bangkok.  He is accused of cracking Switzerland Bank’s computers and websites.

Farid Essebar, who has dual Moroccan-Russian nationality, was detained in Bangkok last week by officials from the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), according to the Bangkok Post news website.  Police Colonel Songsak Raksaksakul, chief of the International Cases and International Crime Division, said that authorities had arrested the suspect at a condominium on Rama IV Road.

“Thailand will send him to Switzerland within 90 days in accordance with the extradition agreement" between Switzerland and Thailand,’' he added.

The 27-year-old Moroccan-Russian citizen was arrested on suspicion of taking part in a cyber crime which involved cracking banking systems and hacking into online banking websites.  The breach was reported to have resulted in $4 billion worth of damage to customers in Europe in 2011.

Police are reportedly searching for two other gang members involved in the breach.

In an interview with the Bangkok Post, the DSI official said that Swiss police had alerted Thai authorities “to their hunt for the hacker through their embassy in Bangkok after receiving information that he and three other gang members had come to Thailand.”

“DSI officials and police tracked Essebar for about two years until they were certain that he was the one on the wanted list by Switzerland,” he added.

This is not the first time Essebar was arrested. In 2006, he was sentenced to two years in prison for spreading the Zotob computer worm that targeted Windows 2000 operating systems in 2005. Among the affected were CNN, ABC News, the New York Times, Caterpillar, United Parcel Service, Boeing and also the United States Department of Homeland Security.