PARIS (AP)  Twenty-five suspected members of the loose-knit
Anonymous hacker movement have been arrested in a sweep across Europe and South America, Interpol, the global police agency, said on Tuesday.
The arrests, in Argentina, Chile,
Colombia and Spain were carried out by national law-enforcement officers working under the support of Interpol’s Latin American Working Group of Experts on Information Technology Crime, Interpol said in a statement.
Those arrested, who ranged in age between 17 and 40, are suspected of planning coordinated cyber-attacks against institutions including Colombia’s defense ministry and presidential Web sites, Chile’s Endesa electricity company and national library, and other targets.
The arrests followed an ongoing investigation begun in mid-February, which comprised searches of 40 locations in 15 cities and included the seizure of 250 pieces of information technology equipment and mobile phones, Interpol said.
Among the 25 people arrested were four suspected Anonymous hackers seized in connection with attacks on Spanish political party Web sites, the Spanish police announced. A national police statement said two servers used by the group in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have been blocked. It said the four arrested included the suspected manager of Anonymous’s computer operations in Spain and Latin America, who was identified only by his initials and the aliases “Thunder†and “Pacotron.â€
The four are suspected of defacing websites, carrying out denial-of-service attacks and publishing data online about police assigned to the royal palace and the premier’s office.
Anonymous has no real membership structure. Hackers, activists, and supporters can claim allegiance to its freewheeling principles so it is not clear what impact the arrests will have. Some Internet chatter appeared to point to the possibility of a revenge attack on Interpol’s Web site, but the police organization’s home page appeared to be operating normally late Tuesday.
Interpol, whose headquarters are in Lyon, France, has no arrest or investigative powers. It facilitates intelligence sharing to help police forces around the world work together.
Anonymous, whose genesis can be traced back to a popular United States image messaging board, has become increasingly politicized amid a global clampdown on music piracy and the international controversy over the publication of classified documents by WikiLeaks, a group with which many Anonymous supporters identify.
Authorities in Europe, North America and elsewhere have made dozens of arrests, and in retaliation, Anonymous has increasingly attacked law enforcement, military and intelligence-linked targets.
The group turned the tables on the authorities last month by listening in on a conference call between the F.B.I., Scotland Yard and other foreign police agencies about their joint investigation into Anonymous and its allies.
One Twitter account purportedly associated with Anonymous’s Brazilian wing said the latest sweep would fail. “Interpol, you can’t take Anonymous,†the message read. “It’s an idea.â€
