The highly-sophisticated international operation, run with the help of a disgraced ex-Russian bank chief, saw tens of thousands of British, American and Spanish account holders defrauded out of millions of pounds, Yorkshire Post reports.

Police believe the Internet-based enterprise, founded on strict business lines, ran for a staggering 10 years. During that time, huge numbers of compromised credit cards were used to buy large amounts of electrical goods, later sold to customers on the eBay website in Britain and abroad, as well as to gamble extensively on various sporting fixtures.

A library of false documents and even a bogus firm of solicitors were used to generate numerous fictitious identities and open hundreds of bank accounts to hold the huge amounts of “illicit cash” flooding in.

At its heart was Anton Dolgov, former head of the ill-fated Moscow City Bank. He hid behind a string of aliases, including Anton Gelonkin, the name under which he appeared at London’s Harrow Crown Court. As the “general manager”, he is thought to have a huge fortune stashed in secret Russian bank accounts waiting for him when he finally emerges from prison.

For part of the time he ran the operation from an unassuming-looking “nerve centre” in north Kensington, London, equipped with state-of-the-art computers protected by cutting-edge encryption software. His downfall was “triggered” by a police swoop on the operation’s “Spanish wing” in Barcelona and the arrest of one of his lieutenants, Andreas Fuhrmann, who is currently awaiting trial there.

The raid also resulted in an international warrant for Anthony Peyton — alias Gelonkin. Unfortunately, no one knew where he was — until the master fraudster became a crime victim himself when someone raided his headquarters at BusPace Studios.

The Serious and Organised Crime Organisation was called in, the gang’s premises were subsequently raided and a massive amount of material recovered. But the evidential haul would almost certainly have been much greater had not one of the gang’s “integral members”, Aleksei Kostap, managed to outwit officers despite being handcuffed.

As they searched the premises, he suddenly leapt onto a sofa and launched himself 7feet into the air to throw a vital power switch near the ceiling. It promptly blanked out the bank of computers the operation relied on and triggered layers of encryption.

Despite the efforts of police experts, the system has proved impregnable and its secrets will probably remain beyond reach for ever. Estonian national Kostap, 31, was convicted of conspiracies to defraud, obtain services by deception, acquire, use and possess criminal property, and conceal, disguise, convert, transfer or remove criminal property “from the jurisdiction”.

He was also found guilty of perverting the course of justice by shutting down the power to the PCs. He will be dealt with on December 13.

His 42-year-old Russian boss Gelonkin, who admitted the four conspiracy counts just before he was due to stand trial, will be sentenced with him. So, too, will another of his minions, Lithuanian Romanos Vasilauskas, 24, who pleaded guilty to possessing three false passports with intent.

David Hewett, prosecuting, told the court that, while the fraud was thought to have lasted up to a decade, the indictment covered just an 18-month period between June 2003 and January last year when the gang was arrested. Despite the comparatively brief timespan involved, the evidence showed the gang still managed to pocket at least 750,000 pounds.

“However, it is quite clear the total amount of money defrauded will probably never be known,” he added.

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