A man once dubbed as “Acid’s Mr Big” has admitted to a £1.3m cyber fraud attack on Barclays and Santander customers using a variety of high tech equipment. Tony Colston-Hayter is said to have been one of the ringleaders of a large fraud ring, and has pleaded guilty to being in possession of more than 400,000 documents containing the personal data of victims. He used a 24-sim telephone exchange to help facilitate the fraud.
Fraud can take many forms, from benefit fraud and tax fraud to employer fraud, which is often called embezzlement, and cyber fraud. Cyber fraud attacks have become increasingly common because more personal details are held on servers in banks and other institutions across the world. While most fraud cases are considered relatively small-scale, fraud rings have been set up with the intention of taking millions of pounds.
In the 1980s, Mr Colston-Hayter was billed as “Acid’s Mr Big”. During his teenage years, he set up a video game business but was forced to declare bankrupt shortly after. Colston-Hayter then claims that he was banned from casinos across the country because of his blackjack winning skills, and he used the winnings from his gambling to establish the World Wide Productions event company. World Wide Productions set up more than 30 acid house events, catering to tens of thousands of ravers.
One event in 1989, at an airport in White Waltham, drew unwanted attention from the media, and police raided the next event staged by Colston-Hayter, which had a 200ft row of speakers. The Conservative Party threatened to regulate “repetitive beats” as a result of the raid, and Colston-Hayter joined forces with Paul Staines, who would later become the political blogger known as Guido Fawkes, and lobbied the government for their right to enjoy all night parties.
Colston-Hayter’s life has taken a different turn, and he and a number of other co-conspirators are facing charges of fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and credit card fraud. It is believed that the group took more than £1.3m, and the full extent of the fraud is likely to surface during the trials.