A former computer scientific discipline student who used the moniker K!NG and made more than $ 900,000 scamming visitors to legal porn sites using ransomware has been doom to six long time in clink , the BBC account .

Zain Qaiser is now 24 , but authority say most of his hacking activity took situation when he was 17 through 19 , and live at his family home . At the time he worked with a Russian - base spheric criminal offence group and expend his earnings on a Rolex watch , gambling , drug , sex workers , and high - end hotel , according to theNational Crime Agency(NCA ) , which enquire organized crime in the UK .

“ This was one of the most sophisticated , serious and organized cyber crime groups the National Crime Agency has ever investigated , ” Nigel Leary , NCA senior investigating officer , said in a statement . “ This was an highly long - running , complex cyber - crime investigation in which we worked with partners in the U.S. , Canada , Europe , and the Crown Prosecution Service . ”

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Photo: Oli Scarff (Getty)

Using the moniker K!NG , authorities say Qaiser stupefy as lawful ad agency and buy advertizing traffic from porn sites . The criminal offense chemical group he worked with reportedly place advertising that associate to site that hosted malware . One such ransomware was Reveton , which locks users ’ browsers . Qaiser ’s operation would reportedly demand dupe give up to $ 1,000 in exchange for returning access . Sometimes these fraudulent messages would seem as if linked to constabulary enforcement agencies .

Here are instance provided by NCA :

The NCA constitute that when ad agency tried to intervene with Qaiser ’s plan , he responded by blackmailing the agency or using DDoS flack , telling one company music director , “ I ’ll first belt down your waiter , then send nestling porn junk e-mail abuses . ”

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Image: (NCA)

“ The harm because of your offending was extensive — so panoptic that there does not seem to be a reported case affect anything comparable , ” Judge Timothy Lamb told Qaiser in court , harmonize to The Guardian . “ All the grammatical constituent offences were part and portion of your theatrical role as the self - style ‘ K!NG ’ of the internet . It has been asserted on your behalf you are contrite . I have see no outward-bound saying of that . ”

The trial was originally plan for February 2018 , but was delayed because the defense attorney say Qaiser suffered from mental sickness .

The Guardian report that while Qaiser was detain at a psychiatric hospital , the hospital wifi was used to access ad sites that Qaiser had previously used in his ransomware scheme .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

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