Jew World Order

Interpol has revealed that 25 suspected members of the loose-knit Anonymous hacker movement have been arrested in a sweep across Europe and South America.

The international police agency said in a statement that the arrests in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain were carried out by national law-enforcement officers working under the support of its Latin American Working Group of Experts on Information Technology Crime.

The suspects, aged between 17 and 40, are suspected of planning coordinated cyber attacks against institutions, including Colombia’s defence ministry and presidential websites, Chile’s Endesa electricity company and national library, as well as other targets.

The arrests followed an ongoing investigation begun in mid-February, which also led to the seizure of 250 items of ICT equipment and mobile phones in searches of 40 premises in 15 cities, Interpol said.

Earlier on Tuesday, police in Spain announced the arrest of four suspected Anonymous hackers in connection with attacks on Spanish political party websites. The four were among the 25 announced by Interpol.

It said that these four people included the alleged manager of Anonymous’ computer operations in Spain and Latin America, who was identified only by his initials and the aliases “Thunder” and “Pacotron”.

The four are suspected of defacing websites, carrying out denial-of-service (DoS) attacks and publishing data online on police assigned to the royal palace and the premier’s office.

A police statement claimed that two servers that were used by the group in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have been blocked.

Interpol is headquartered in Lyon, France.

The organisation has no powers of arrest or investigation, but helps police forces around the world work together, facilitating intelligence sharing.

Anonymous’ genesis can be traced back to a popular US image messaging board, and has become increasingly politicised amid a global clampdown on music piracy and the international controversy over the secret-spilling site Wikileaks, with which many of its supporters identify.

Authorities in Europe, North America and elsewhere have made dozens of arrests, and Anonymous has increasingly attacked law enforcement, military and intelligence-linked targets in retaliation.

One of Anonymous’ most spectacular coups was secretly recording a conference call between US and British cyber investigators tasked with bringing the group to justice.

Anonymous has no real membership structure, with hackers, activists and supporters able to claim allegiance to its freewheeling principles at their convenience, so it is unclear what impact the arrests will have.

Some speculation on the internet appeared to point to a revenge attack on Interpol’s website, but the police organisation’s home page appeared to be operating as normal late on Tuesday.

One Twitter account purportedly associated with Anonymous’ Brazilian wing said that the sweep would fail.

“Interpol, you can’t take Anonymous,” the message read.

“It’s an idea.”