Laws And Lawyers

The founding member of a global criminal website responsible for tens of millions of pounds of credit card crime is facing a lengthy jail term.

Renukanth Subramaniam, 33, set up Darkmarket, which enabled criminals to buy the stolen credit card details of hundreds of thousands of people, many from Britain.

In between delivering pizzas he used an internet café in Wembley, northwest London, to create the site that was described by investigators as a “shop window for criminality”. Fraudsters could learn how to steal personal information from banks and individuals and buy the equipment to do so.

Darkmarket, containing 2,000 names, was used by lone criminals and organised gangs in Russia, Turkey, Germany, Britain, Israel, the US, Canada and France. It is the biggest English-speaking site that the Serious Organised Crime Agency has ever taken offline. Credit card details were stolen by hackers, taken from false ATM fronts and by spam e-mails as well as by criminals recording the details when cards were used at petrol stations. Each one sold for about £50.

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Subramaniam, from Colombo, Sri Lanka, came to Britain in 1993. He set up the site in 2005 after another that he belonged to — Shadow Crew— was infiltrated by US agents and shut down. For Darkmarket, each member had to provide details of 100 compromised cards that were tested to see how much could be made from them. If the results were good the member would be admitted. Despite this an FBI agent was still able to infilitrate the site and identify Subramaniam.

This week at Blackfriars Crown Court, Subramaniam admitted conspiracy to defraud and mortgage frauds. John McHugh, 66, also admitted conspiracy to defraud. The pair will be sentenced