FBI takes down massive army of 'zombie' computers

Chinese citizen running world's largest botnet arrested

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WASHINGTON (AP) - An international law enforcement team has arrested a Chinese national and disrupted a major botnet that officials said he ran for nearly a decade, amassing at least $99 million in profits by reselling access to criminals who used it for identity theft, child exploitation and financial fraud, including pandemic relief scams.

The US Department of Justice quoted FBI Director Christopher Wray as saying Wednesday that the "911 S5" botnet a network of 19 million malware-infected computers in nearly 200 countries - was likely the world's largest.

In a news release, the department said Yunhe Wang, 35, was arrested on May 24.

Brett Leatherman, FBI deputy assistant director for cyber operations, said in a LinkedIn post that Wang was arrested in Singapore and that search warrants were executed in Singapore and in Thailand.

Leatherman added that authorities also seized $29 million in cryptocurrency and about $30 million in real estate.