A scammer who is believed to have helped cybercriminals defraud more than a million victims has been jailed for eight and a half years.
Zak Coyne, 24, from Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, was accused of helping more than 2,000 scammers steal at least £100m. It is estimated that £32m was stolen in the UK.
The fraud involved Coyne running a subscription-based service via his website called LabHost.
LabHost was an online subscription-based service hosting phishing scam pages which pretended to be major banks, Governement websites and popular brands such as Amazon, Netflix, and Uber.
Judge Jenny Lester-Ashworth the defendant: “It was one of the most professional and sophisticated websites in the world for committing online fraud.
“You also enjoyed what you were doing and also by being immersed in the criminal underworld operating online.”
The judge said that Labhost had allowed fraud to be carried out on ‘an industrial scale.’
The Labhost scam website was closed down in April 2024 after a joint investigation by the authorities.
Martin Richardson, senior partner at National Fraud Helpline, said: ‘The Labhost scam has brought financial and emotional misery to hundreds of thousands of people.
‘We would like to congratulate the authorities for bringing this scammer to justice.
‘Coyne was an essential fraud facilitator that allowed criminal organisations across the world to exploit people in the UK and beyond.
Have you lost money to a Labhost scam? Contact National Fraud Helpline. Call 0333 0033218 or fill out our Claim Form.