The group is alleged to have distributed scareware products on more than 960,000 computers and netted $72 million from the sale of fraudulent anti-malware products.

Five bank accounts thought to belong to gang leaders have been seized by Lativian authorities.

In all, the Operation Trident Tribunal has resulted in the seizure of 22 computers in the U.S., and an additional 25 computers located in the Netherlands, Latvia, Germany, France and other countries.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's Security Topic Center.