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No arrests yet from Melbourne AFP raid

The Australian Federal Police today confirmed it had not yet made any arrests from a highly publicised raid on an alleged internet fraudster in Melbourne, despite holding evidence for around a week.
Written by Renai LeMay, Contributor

The Australian Federal Police today confirmed it had not yet made any arrests from a highly publicised raid on an alleged internet fraudster in Melbourne, despite holding evidence for around a week.

On Monday 17 August, the ABC's Four Corners show broadcasted a pre-dawn raid on a Melbourne house in which several computers and other digital storage devices were seized, saying the raid had taken place five days beforehand.

According to Four Corners, police said the Melbourne man had been posting on online forums seeking to gain stolen credit card details and to purchase his own botnet. He had mocked Australian police forces online, which a police officer on the broadcast said was "like showing a red flag to a bull".

Though, today a spokesperson for the AFP said no arrests had yet been made in connection with the case. They would not comment further on whether the raid was part of a wider investigation or operation, or whether such an investigation had come to an end.

However, the spokesperson did confirm there was a connection between the r00t-y0u.org internet forum mentioned in the report and the arrest of an Adelaide man on 13 August. That man is alleged to have infected 3000 computers worldwide with viruses designed to capture banking details, and of having developed software capable of launching virus attacks on 74,000 computers worldwide.

It is believed the Adelaide man is the individual mentioned in the Four Corners report behind the r00t-y0u.org forum.

Earlier this week the AFP sought to clarify a Sydney Morning Herald report that hackers had broken into one of its computer systems as an act of revenge following the infiltration of the forum.

"The AFP denies that 'hackers' accessed police systems during the conduct of its investigation. No information or files exist that have, or could have, been compromised," the agency said in a statement.

"The computer used was stand-alone in nature and specifically deployed for this type of investigation. The stand-alone computer was not attached in anyway to the AFP's secure network. The above information was clarified to the journalist prior to the article being published."

Victoria Police declined to comment on the Melbourne raid, directing all enquiries to the AFP.

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