Father who hacked into 772 webcams to watch 47 women have sex was captured by the FBI after tip off
- Christopher Taylor was caught after the FBI was tipped off by IT specialists
A father-of-three who hacked into hundreds of webcams across the world so he could spy on women undressing and having sex is facing jail after IT specialists tipped off the FBI.
Christopher Taylor, 60, was caught when IT staff at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta alerted the FBI after the malware was found on the laptop of a student at its aerospace laboratory.
Taylor had tricked 772 people in 39 different countries into unwittingly relinquishing control of their computers so he could monitor their private lives over a three-year period.
Police believe 47 women were secretly watched by the married man from his laptop at his £170,000 semi-detached home in Wigan, Greater Manchester, while engaging in sexual activity with their partners.
A prosecutor said the malware was detected on a student’s laptop by the ‘sophisticated spyware systems’ at Georgia Institute of Technology. That enabled FBI agents to link it back to Taylor’s unassuming home in north west England.
The investigation found Taylor had deleted thousands of files before his arrest.
When British police raided his home, Taylor – a full-time carer for his wife Wendy – told officers: ‘It’s just what I’ve been meddling with on the computer.
He faced extradition proceedings to face trial in the US for wire fraud and computer fraud, but the request was turned down after a judge in London ruled it would ‘negatively impact’ his ailing wife.
More than seven years after his original arrest, Taylor could be jailed today after he admitted securing unauthorised access to computer material and voyeurism.
Taylor also admitted possession of extreme pornography over obscene images found on his devices.
He lured in his unwitting victims with a phony link he placed on porn sites which, when clicked, would allow him full access to their laptop’s function, Bolton Crown Court heard.
He was found to have…
