DarkMarket_ Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You - Misha Glenny [110]
As an amateur geek, he leaped at the chance to apply for a post in the Baden-Württemberg police in 2001. The Stuttgart headquarters needed somebody with experience of the open-source operating system Linux, to provide network security. Five years later he was permitted to migrate with his computer skills to the criminal-investigations department, where he was assigned to work under Frank Eissmann.
Matrix001 was not the only German identified by Keith Mularski as an active member of DarkMarket. The other two were Soulfly, real name Michael Artamonow, and Fake, real name Bilge Ülusoy. Initially, the State Prosecutor sought to indict Matrix001 on charges of forming a criminal conspiracy, but this required proof that he was working in cahoots with the other two.
For some reason, however, no investigation was ever launched into Fake and Soulfly, and this was partly responsible for a judge in October 2007 forcing the State Prosecutor to drop the accusation of conspiracy in favour of the lesser charges of credit-card fraud. Why they dropped the investigation into the presumed co-conspirators was just the first of several unanswered questions, which were to undermine confidence in the ability of the Provincial and Federal Police in Germany to investigate the case.
And the Baden-Württemberg police in Stuttgart had a lot riding on the investigation into Matrix001. Usually all communication in international cases like this would be filtered through Wiesbaden, but the chief investigator, Frank Eissmann, had persuaded his superiors that he should be allowed to talk directly to Keith Mularski, the FBI’s key man.
There were thus jitters aplenty when Mularski heard from Matrix001 that the German hacker had received a message from an anonymous hushmail account warning him that he was about to be busted. And police in London, Pittsburgh and Stuttgart were all praying that the source was not too close to their own home.
After Lingel’s arrest, relief spread among the investigators – it seemed as though they had their man. But in December 2007 Dezernat 3.5 sent Lingel a letter saying that there was no further evidence linking him with the email breach and that he could return to work the following month, at the beginning of 2008. However, he did not return to Department IV, which was handling the Matrix001 investigation. Lingel felt extremely bitter towards his immediate boss, Frank Eissmann, who had, it seemed, been partially responsible for pointing the finger at his subordinate.
As the trial of Matrix approached in the late spring, the atmosphere in the Stuttgart police headquarters was gloomy and riven with discord. Unable to press charges of conspiracy against Matrix, the prosecution knew that they were unlikely to get a custodial sentence. Furthermore, they were back to square one in trying to ascertain who the source of the leak was.
Although Lingel was resentful at what had happened to him, his reassignment to Department I turned out to be perfectly palatable and his new colleagues’ behaviour towards him was exemplary. It was a relief and a welcome change after months of being viewed with suspicion.
Then, in May 2008, Lingel was placed under arrest again. But this time he was not accused of having written the emails to Matrix. Lingel was charged with having jeopardised the undercover identity of the FBI Agent, Keith J. Mularski.
37
ZORRO UNMASKED
Just as Matrix was standing trial in June 2008, a radio reporter, Kai Laufen, was flicking through a copy of the MIT’s* Technology Review when he spotted an article on cybercrime. Until this moment the investigative journalist from Karlsruhe in south-west Germany had no idea that it was becoming such a problem. He was intrigued and decided to discover the extent to which cybercrime was affecting Germany.