For over a year now, a number of online gamblers have been terrorized by a hacker who was stealing up to $50,000 a month. But Argentinian police may have finally brought an end to this nightmare after busting a 19-year-old hacker whose dad is an IT engineer.

The hacker’s operation began when he sent out a malware virus that hit people when they were downloading online poker and casino software. The teenager would then use denial of service attacks (DDoS) to lock people out of their accounts while he stole their money. The DDoS attacks were supported by thousands of “zombie” computers that flooded payment platforms.

Online poker and casino players weren’t the only ones targeted because a businessman who owned a web hosting service also reported being victimized. He went to police after hackers kept intercepting money transfers that were intended for his web hosting site.

Police then launched “Operation Zombie” and began working to uncover the hacker. As Buenos Aries Chief Prosecutor Graciela Gils Carbo explained, Argentinian police concluded that the same person who hacked the businessman was also behind the online gambling cyber thefts. Authorities also discovered that six other people were involved in the criminal network.

But the unidentified 19-year-old is the headliner here since he allegedly did most of the damage. The only details on the young man is that his father is an information systems engineer. In all, police believe that the hacker and his cohorts stole around $600,000 from victims.

What’s disturbing about this incident is that it comes just a short while after poker players at EPT Barcelona reported their laptops being compromised. Jens Kyllonen broke the news by saying that somebody kept breaking into his room and taking his laptop, possibly to install a Trojan virus. Hotel security was of little help, so Barcelona police are looking into the matter right now.