UKRANIAN BEHIND FRAUD

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Indian police have detained a Ukranian man charged in the US over a hacking case involving the theft of 40 million credit and debit card numbers, police said Wednesday.

Sergey V. Storchak was detained after he landed in New Delhi on a domestic flight from the southwestern holiday state of Goa on Monday, a police spokesman said.

He is one of 11 people wanted by the US Justice Department in "the largest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted," according to a statement on the department's website dated August 2008.

Besides Storchak, three Americans, two Ukrainians, two Chinese, one Estonian, a Belarussian and an unidentified suspect were on the wanted list, the justice department said.

The group is accused of obtaining credit and debit card numbers by hacking into the computer networks of major US retailers -- including book seller Barnes and Noble, OfficeMax, shoe retailer DSW and Sports Authority

Once inside the network, "sniffer programmes" captured credit card numbers, passwords and account information. The data was stored in encrypted servers controlled from eastern Europe and the United States.

Some stolen numbers were sold to other criminals, while others were encoded on blank cards and used to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars from bank machines, the statement says.

The Mail Today reported Storchak was arrested after a tip-off by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

"His photo was handed over to the CISF (Central Indian Security Force) personnel so that they could identify him," said an unnamed Delhi police official quoted by the report.

"His presence was also confirmed by the airline official as his name was there on the passenger list."

The FBI will have to formally apply for Storchak's extradition to take him to the United States, the report said.