Traced through his takeaway order • Began playing Roblox • Allegedly handled £200m in Crypto • Based in his family flat near Bow Road station • One of the country's leading hackers
One thing that didn't come out of this story but which I discussed with your reporter was the social element in the motivations of this class of cybercriminal. They meet people who are similar to them in interests and outlook, help eachother out within the various groups but also want to be better than anyone else. The ransoms they collect are trophies - in most cases turning crypto into fiat cash without being traced is very difficult. But the ransom money is of course still lost to the victims.
Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us. I suppose there's a case that Jubair could have nominally been one of the richest people in London. Just unable to actually access any of it for useful means.
To the young neighbours in this article looking to get in on the action: be careful what you wish for. Several members of the Scattered Spider group have been kidnapped, beaten and tortured by other criminals looking to extort their millions in crypto. It looks like Jabair's parents have been targeted too.
This is truly excellent reporting and, sadly, no MSM would have had the resource to investigate this story. I wonder if Jubair’s ‘ talents’ could be turned to support our Security Services/GCHQ in tackling our enemies in this area of cyber conflict. Controversial, I Know but his skills are extraordinary and could significantly disrupt Putin.
First time commenter and new subscriber. What an absolutely brilliant piece. Exactly why I subscribe.
As a volunteer for Neighbourhood Watch in SE18, I'm not suprised at what goes on behind closed doors. The money to be made in cyber crime and the non contact nature of it means it is becoming more and more popular for criminals. Sextortion, another example that is increasingly common and sadly leads to suicides.
It will be interesting to see how the court deals with sentencing. Inprisonment, at £60-70k a year is likely to be poor value for the tax payer - the prisons are full, poor at rehabilitation of "ordinary" criminals and provide introductions between hackers and serious organised criminals. At the same time the public need to be protected.
And chilling as to how open to this modern society is. Could have been a chunk of the NHS, or DWP. Only going to get worse with A1. Lets not mess about, a VILE individual and sex creep blackmailer. No excuses, none.
Great reporting. I hope he does get extradited, US do not mess about when it comes sentencing for this kind of thing. And the parents knew he was committing theft/fraud by sim swapping? Surely they should be in the dock too.
As someone who comes from a similar socioeconomic background to Jubair and is also Bangladeshi, I can say it’s very likely his parents didn’t fully understand the gravity of the situation or the extent of what was happening.
I met both his parents in the earlier Lapsus$ case trial where I was the prosecution expert witness. FWIW they seemed to be thoroughly nice resposible individuals.
With respect, I don’t see what his ethnicity or class has to do with it. Computer stuff is probably confusing for a lot of parents but didn’t his previous convictions make them take more interest in what he was doing? This isn’t just hacking for the fun of it, this is serious organised crime.
Respectfully, I don’t think this is black and white. Bangladeshi communities have some of the lowest formal education rates globally, and Tower Hamlets specifically has a large population where English isn’t a first language. From what’s been reported, from a quick google search I can see that his father works as a care worker and his mother is his full-time carer, that’s a household stretched thin, not one with the bandwidth to interrogate what “sim swapping” even means, let alone connect it to a previous conviction.
The article itself has a resident asking whether Allah can get them out of the hood ... very evidently that’s not incidental, it’s telling you exactly what socioeconomic reality this community is operating in. And speaking as someone who was born and raised in East London to Bangladeshi parents, from Tower Hamlets myself, very few people in that generation can comprehend social media, let alone hacking and sim swapping.
It’s also worth saying that in a lot of Bangladeshi households, autism and ADHD aren’t well understood or even really accepted as real conditions - not because they don’t exist, but because awareness and research around them is still fairly new, especially compared to how much more it’s been recognised in the West. So it’s very possible his parents didn’t fully grasp what they were seeing, and may have written off certain behaviours or incidents as a one-off, or just “a bad day,” or even a bad habit, rather than understanding it as part of a wider pattern. That’s not an excuse, it’s just the reality of how little this stuff is understood in that generation.
Fair point that my life looks pretty different from Jubair’s on paper ... I don’t think I ever meant to suggest otherwise. My point wasn’t “I’m like him,” it was about the wider community his parents are part of, which I do have real experience of, even if my own path has taken me elsewhere.
Happy to hear if you disagree with the substance of what I said about education, language, or how conditions like autism/ADHD are understood generationally - that’s the bit I’d rather focus on.
I think you are making a reasonable point even though I disagree with some of your points which I might respond to later. Thanks for adding to the discussion
Do first- or second-generation Bangladeshi parents in the UK even understand what autism is and that he should never have been left alone online to work on his crazy hateful antisocial schemes? Who was ever going to stop him?
That’s actually kind of contradictory ... if first/second gen parents don’t fully understand autism (which you seem to be granting), how would they know to specifically watch for “hacking schemes”? You can’t supervise for something you don’t have the framework to recognise. That’s not a gap in parenting, it’s a gap in awareness that goes back to the exact point I made.
Also “crazy hateful antisocial schemes” is a bit much - this was financially motivated fraud, not some ideological hate campaign. Framing it that way makes it sound worse than what’s actually been reported, and it doesn’t really help understand why any of this happened.
If they don’t understand their own child’s highly heritable mental disorder, they won’t understand that it falls to them to keep him off screens where he obsessively commits crimes in order to make erstwhile friends. That’s bad parenting. In the U.S. it is now being viewed as perhaps criminally bad parenting. Someone has to notice these strange lonely amoral young males.
Excessively lenient sentences strike again. It's a massive waste of police time as much as anything else - why bother paying them to investigate the first crime if you set him free to trigger another huge investigation a year later?
For many of these young people, it seems it's both utterly compulsive and also their only social outlet. Jubair allegedly returned to hacking the moment he could. They're incredibly smart!
eg, Jubair's codefendant in the first case hacked Rockstar games while on bail under police protection in a Travelodge after having his laptop confiscated, using a mobile phone, a Fire Stick and his hotel TV: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67663128
As a computer programmer of many years standing, it peeves me to see these reprobates described as “geniuses” or “wizards”. In reality, the “hacks” they perform are usually well within the capabilities of any competent programmer. The difference is that most programmers have some ethical discretion, better things to do, understand the consequences of pulling stunts like these, and also are well aware of how easy it can be for the authorities to trace them when they inevitably make a mistake.
Are they actually that smart though? The "hacking" is phoning service desks and asking for password resets. It doesn't sound like they're actually a particularly competent programmer or technically excellent, but rather are motivated, persistent and don't care/recognise the consequences?
In fact the hacker groups are specifically targeting kids as young as 12 because they know the legal system won't imprison them before 18 and they'll remain active even if caught. Autistic kids are particularly vulnerable because the group offers them social validation and respect that they might not be getting elsewhere.
Shoplifting is a different matter - alot of good work has happened in that sphere from the MET recently in my area, including new systems and relations with stores to make sure offenders are targeted, and crime prevention is put in place.
Most shoplifting is a simple as indivduals funding addictions. A solution partly also rests on engaging and punishing those outlets where stolen food etc are passed on.
Agree on the resale - I used to drink in a pub where addicts would routinely come in to resell steaks nicked from the tesco up the road. But there is some evidence that criminal gangs are increasingly contributing:
Indeed. US investigators are pushing to use the same methods used to tackle youth in street gangs for these sorts of cases. Because their whole social life is tied up in the hacking group, offenders simply return to the group. They are not likely to become "white hat" hackers.
This solipsistic youth has gotten a worse sentence than any Court in the UK could hand down: he hacked Las Vegas casinos and the people behind them know who he is now. Dead manchild walking? He's a very creepy little perv, stalking and harassing girls. Desperate stuff. I think the authorities have to buck up their surveillance of these criminals.
Hardly 'very' modern. I'm old enough to remember Gary McKinnon. So are you Jim. There's a huge difference between a hacker and a cybercriminal. Of course better firewalls would make both impossible.
Teen hackers have been around since the 1980s - the movie WarGames was in 1984. DataStreamCowboy who accessed the USAF was 1993 - that was the first case in which I was instructed as expert. Most of them have elements on the autism spectrum, some much more extreme than others. In the cases of Gary McKinnon and Lauri Love the issue was to attempt to prevent extradition to the US - on medical grounds.
Funnily enough WarGames (I went to see that at the pictures when it was 1st released in Birkenhead) is always the 1st thing that pops into my head. Brilliant wasn't it? I'd forgotten Lauri Love (shame on me).
Is it autism though or boredom with the fact that grown ups leave loopholes? Loopholes worse than ever these days IMO.
Funny that it was ordering a pizza that got him in the end.
I guess that's just how the Domino's fall.
I really, really appreciate your support but I fear I may have to ban you from the comments for making me groan so much.
bet you still laughed
One thing that didn't come out of this story but which I discussed with your reporter was the social element in the motivations of this class of cybercriminal. They meet people who are similar to them in interests and outlook, help eachother out within the various groups but also want to be better than anyone else. The ransoms they collect are trophies - in most cases turning crypto into fiat cash without being traced is very difficult. But the ransom money is of course still lost to the victims.
Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us. I suppose there's a case that Jubair could have nominally been one of the richest people in London. Just unable to actually access any of it for useful means.
To the young neighbours in this article looking to get in on the action: be careful what you wish for. Several members of the Scattered Spider group have been kidnapped, beaten and tortured by other criminals looking to extort their millions in crypto. It looks like Jabair's parents have been targeted too.
This is truly excellent reporting and, sadly, no MSM would have had the resource to investigate this story. I wonder if Jubair’s ‘ talents’ could be turned to support our Security Services/GCHQ in tackling our enemies in this area of cyber conflict. Controversial, I Know but his skills are extraordinary and could significantly disrupt Putin.
I was thinking along the same lines!
First time commenter and new subscriber. What an absolutely brilliant piece. Exactly why I subscribe.
As a volunteer for Neighbourhood Watch in SE18, I'm not suprised at what goes on behind closed doors. The money to be made in cyber crime and the non contact nature of it means it is becoming more and more popular for criminals. Sextortion, another example that is increasingly common and sadly leads to suicides.
Amazing article, thanks.
It will be interesting to see how the court deals with sentencing. Inprisonment, at £60-70k a year is likely to be poor value for the tax payer - the prisons are full, poor at rehabilitation of "ordinary" criminals and provide introductions between hackers and serious organised criminals. At the same time the public need to be protected.
Brilliant reporting, it’s extraordinary to think of this happening on your door step.
Proof of the danger of allowing Farage to wield power, as he's the point guy for legitimising crypto, the scammers currency
Magnificent reporting.
And chilling as to how open to this modern society is. Could have been a chunk of the NHS, or DWP. Only going to get worse with A1. Lets not mess about, a VILE individual and sex creep blackmailer. No excuses, none.
You mean like this? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9777v4m8zdo Not the 1st time it happened either.
Weirdly that area of Bow Road was also where the Russians who poisoned Sergei Skripal stayed too.
So it was! I always give a nod when I pass the City View while reporting out that way.
Fantastic journalism, what an insightful read!
Great reporting. I hope he does get extradited, US do not mess about when it comes sentencing for this kind of thing. And the parents knew he was committing theft/fraud by sim swapping? Surely they should be in the dock too.
As someone who comes from a similar socioeconomic background to Jubair and is also Bangladeshi, I can say it’s very likely his parents didn’t fully understand the gravity of the situation or the extent of what was happening.
I met both his parents in the earlier Lapsus$ case trial where I was the prosecution expert witness. FWIW they seemed to be thoroughly nice resposible individuals.
In what way were they ever responsible or good citizens?
With respect, I don’t see what his ethnicity or class has to do with it. Computer stuff is probably confusing for a lot of parents but didn’t his previous convictions make them take more interest in what he was doing? This isn’t just hacking for the fun of it, this is serious organised crime.
Respectfully, I don’t think this is black and white. Bangladeshi communities have some of the lowest formal education rates globally, and Tower Hamlets specifically has a large population where English isn’t a first language. From what’s been reported, from a quick google search I can see that his father works as a care worker and his mother is his full-time carer, that’s a household stretched thin, not one with the bandwidth to interrogate what “sim swapping” even means, let alone connect it to a previous conviction.
The article itself has a resident asking whether Allah can get them out of the hood ... very evidently that’s not incidental, it’s telling you exactly what socioeconomic reality this community is operating in. And speaking as someone who was born and raised in East London to Bangladeshi parents, from Tower Hamlets myself, very few people in that generation can comprehend social media, let alone hacking and sim swapping.
It’s also worth saying that in a lot of Bangladeshi households, autism and ADHD aren’t well understood or even really accepted as real conditions - not because they don’t exist, but because awareness and research around them is still fairly new, especially compared to how much more it’s been recognised in the West. So it’s very possible his parents didn’t fully grasp what they were seeing, and may have written off certain behaviours or incidents as a one-off, or just “a bad day,” or even a bad habit, rather than understanding it as part of a wider pattern. That’s not an excuse, it’s just the reality of how little this stuff is understood in that generation.
I agree Heather. I'm also tempted to guess that the person claiming to 'be like' Jubair isn't.
Fair point that my life looks pretty different from Jubair’s on paper ... I don’t think I ever meant to suggest otherwise. My point wasn’t “I’m like him,” it was about the wider community his parents are part of, which I do have real experience of, even if my own path has taken me elsewhere.
Happy to hear if you disagree with the substance of what I said about education, language, or how conditions like autism/ADHD are understood generationally - that’s the bit I’d rather focus on.
I think you are making a reasonable point even though I disagree with some of your points which I might respond to later. Thanks for adding to the discussion
How do I know you're telling the truth?
Do first- or second-generation Bangladeshi parents in the UK even understand what autism is and that he should never have been left alone online to work on his crazy hateful antisocial schemes? Who was ever going to stop him?
That’s actually kind of contradictory ... if first/second gen parents don’t fully understand autism (which you seem to be granting), how would they know to specifically watch for “hacking schemes”? You can’t supervise for something you don’t have the framework to recognise. That’s not a gap in parenting, it’s a gap in awareness that goes back to the exact point I made.
Also “crazy hateful antisocial schemes” is a bit much - this was financially motivated fraud, not some ideological hate campaign. Framing it that way makes it sound worse than what’s actually been reported, and it doesn’t really help understand why any of this happened.
If they don’t understand their own child’s highly heritable mental disorder, they won’t understand that it falls to them to keep him off screens where he obsessively commits crimes in order to make erstwhile friends. That’s bad parenting. In the U.S. it is now being viewed as perhaps criminally bad parenting. Someone has to notice these strange lonely amoral young males.
Excessively lenient sentences strike again. It's a massive waste of police time as much as anything else - why bother paying them to investigate the first crime if you set him free to trigger another huge investigation a year later?
For many of these young people, it seems it's both utterly compulsive and also their only social outlet. Jubair allegedly returned to hacking the moment he could. They're incredibly smart!
eg, Jubair's codefendant in the first case hacked Rockstar games while on bail under police protection in a Travelodge after having his laptop confiscated, using a mobile phone, a Fire Stick and his hotel TV: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67663128
As a computer programmer of many years standing, it peeves me to see these reprobates described as “geniuses” or “wizards”. In reality, the “hacks” they perform are usually well within the capabilities of any competent programmer. The difference is that most programmers have some ethical discretion, better things to do, understand the consequences of pulling stunts like these, and also are well aware of how easy it can be for the authorities to trace them when they inevitably make a mistake.
Are they actually that smart though? The "hacking" is phoning service desks and asking for password resets. It doesn't sound like they're actually a particularly competent programmer or technically excellent, but rather are motivated, persistent and don't care/recognise the consequences?
A strong argument against lenience! Although given the apparent prevalence of smartphones in prison, maybe not as effective as one would like
In fact the hacker groups are specifically targeting kids as young as 12 because they know the legal system won't imprison them before 18 and they'll remain active even if caught. Autistic kids are particularly vulnerable because the group offers them social validation and respect that they might not be getting elsewhere.
That is sad, but "sophisticated criminal business exploits loophole" is solved by "close the loophole"
See also shoplifting - this is organised crime exploiting the lack of penalties for "minor crimes", often using addicts as the actual shoplifters
Shoplifting is a different matter - alot of good work has happened in that sphere from the MET recently in my area, including new systems and relations with stores to make sure offenders are targeted, and crime prevention is put in place.
Most shoplifting is a simple as indivduals funding addictions. A solution partly also rests on engaging and punishing those outlets where stolen food etc are passed on.
Agree on the resale - I used to drink in a pub where addicts would routinely come in to resell steaks nicked from the tesco up the road. But there is some evidence that criminal gangs are increasingly contributing:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/feb/24/criminals-uk-shops-british-retail-consortium-violence-theft
Indeed. US investigators are pushing to use the same methods used to tackle youth in street gangs for these sorts of cases. Because their whole social life is tied up in the hacking group, offenders simply return to the group. They are not likely to become "white hat" hackers.
This solipsistic youth has gotten a worse sentence than any Court in the UK could hand down: he hacked Las Vegas casinos and the people behind them know who he is now. Dead manchild walking? He's a very creepy little perv, stalking and harassing girls. Desperate stuff. I think the authorities have to buck up their surveillance of these criminals.
Hardly 'very' modern. I'm old enough to remember Gary McKinnon. So are you Jim. There's a huge difference between a hacker and a cybercriminal. Of course better firewalls would make both impossible.
Teen hackers have been around since the 1980s - the movie WarGames was in 1984. DataStreamCowboy who accessed the USAF was 1993 - that was the first case in which I was instructed as expert. Most of them have elements on the autism spectrum, some much more extreme than others. In the cases of Gary McKinnon and Lauri Love the issue was to attempt to prevent extradition to the US - on medical grounds.
Funnily enough WarGames (I went to see that at the pictures when it was 1st released in Birkenhead) is always the 1st thing that pops into my head. Brilliant wasn't it? I'd forgotten Lauri Love (shame on me).
Is it autism though or boredom with the fact that grown ups leave loopholes? Loopholes worse than ever these days IMO.