The fraudsters were part of a hacking ring that targeted the sites of financial firms

Mar 23, 2013 10:29 GMT  ·  By

The UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has revealed that three men – Matthew Beddoes, Jandeep Singh Sangha and Jasdeep Singh Randhawa – have been sentenced to over 5 years in prison for attempting to steal almost €8 million ($10 million) in carbon credits.

The individuals were involved in a computer hacking ring that targeted several websites belonging to banks, financial services companies, brokerages and carbon credit registries between June and November 2011.

The first attempt to steal 426,108 Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits, worth around €4.1 million ($5.3 million), from an account of the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (UNCDM) Registry, was detected in October 2011.

The attempt was blocked after administrators had noticed that the account number used in the transfer was incorrect.

Later that month, the crooks attempted to illegally transfer 350,000 European Union Allowances (EUAs) from the Spanish Carbon Credit Registry RENADE. The carbon credits in this case were worth around €3.7 million ($4.8 million).

The EUAs were transferred to a UK-based broker who sold over 8,300 of them to a third party. The rest of the EUAs were frozen after Spanish authorities had alerted the UK.

Beddoes was arrested in November 2011. When examining his hard drives, authorities uncovered evidence of identity theft, development of phishing websites, and hacking.

Sangha was detained in December 2011 and later pleaded guilty to money laundering. Randhawa was arrested in April 2012 and subsequently pleaded guilty to four counts of conspiracy to commit Computer Misuse Act offenses.

Beddoes got a sentence of 2 years and 9 months, and an additional 9 months for offending whilst on remand, Sangha got 12 months suspended for 2 years, and Randhawa was sentenced to 21 months in prison.