China arrests 36 in Alibaba fraud

1 July 2011 Last updated at 06:47 GMT Alibaba's reputation took a hit as a result of the online fraud on its e-commerce website Chinese police have arrested 36 people connected with operating an online fraud on Alibaba.com and other websites, the company has said.

Those arrested stand accused of duping overseas buyers of more than $6m (?3.7m) by posing as suppliers on the Chinese e-commerce websites.

The fraud resulted in the chief executive and chief operating officer of Alibaba quitting earlier this year.

Alibaba is China's largest e-commerce group.

"The arrest of the suspects hits online scammers hard," said Alibaba.com boss Jonathan Lu.

The company said the arrests were made following a 40-day investigation earlier this year.

Reduced complaints

Alibaba said it had introduced strict procedures in an attempt to prevent a repeat of such cases.

As a result, the number of fraud complaints received monthly by the website declined by 70% between February and June, Alibaba officials said.

The company said it would keep up its efforts to ensure the safety of its consumers.

"We will continue to co-operate with defrauded buyers and police to pursue the investigation, arrest and sentencing of those who commit crimes using our platform," said Linda Kozlowski of Alibaba.com.

"If scammers think they can hide on the internet and that no-one will go after them, they are wrong," she added.

View the original article here

Spain arrests Anonymous suspects

10 June 2011 Last updated at 14:29 GMT Anonymous has carried out web attacks to help Wikileaks Three suspected members of the Anonymous hacking group have been arrested in Spain.

The trio are said to have been involved in co-ordinating the group's activity in that country.

The arrests were made simultaneously in three Spanish cities - Barcelona, Valencia and Almeria.

Anonymous has claimed responsibility for attacks on Sony, Spanish banks and co-ordinated action in defence of whistle-blowing site Wikileaks.

A statement from the Spanish national police force said that a computer seized in the home of one person it arrested was used in the hacks.

The arrests were the culmination of an investigation that began in October 2010.

It involved Spanish cyber police combing through millions of lines of chat logs to identify who was behind the group's activities.

Some of the attacks made by Anonymous members used a web-based tool called Loic to bombard target sites with data. The websites of PayPal, Mastercard and Amazon were all targeted using this tool.

It seems that Loic did a poor job of hiding the identity of the people using it. It is believed that some police forces have already moved against the group based on this information.

Arrests have been made in the US, UK and Holland of Anonymous members, prior to the raids in Spain.

Anonymous grew out of the online picture sharing site 4Chan and describes itself as a group of concerned internet citizens.

As well as attacking sites that it perceives as not supporting Wikileaks, the loosely organised collective has also attacked government sites in Tunisia and Egypt to aid popular protest movements.

View the original article here