Bendigo cyber menace Dean Poot pleads guilty to attacking Victoria Police phone lines

A Bendigo computer hacker ran a one-man menace campaign which disrupted vital Victoria Police communication.

A Bendigo computer hacker who disrupted police phone lines with menacing messages including a ridiculous claim cops are “international scammers” has avoided further jail time.

Dean Poot, 30, was sentenced in the County Court on Thursday to time served – 307 days – after pleading guilty to charges including unauthorised impairment of electronic communication.

Poot, unemployed, used various aliases, stolen identity information, bogus credit cards and unsuspecting stooges to carry out his cyber attack, according to a summary of prosecution offending submitted to the court.

The menace created a computer network to attack the Victoria Police Private Automatic Branch System.

Poot carried out 20 attacks on Victoria Police station’s phone systems between October 16 and 18, 2018, inundating the stations with phone calls, and harassing thousands of civilians.

The attacks, which lasted up to five hours and consisted of more than 25,000 phone calls in total, stopped calls being made to or from the police stations.

During the attacks Poot had a computer call thousands of people’s mobile numbers.

When people answered the calls, they heard prerecorded verbal abuse then were directed to a police station.

The abuse included the lines, “you f*cking twat”, and, “This is not the police, do not listen to them, they are international scammers”.

The other sordid messages were: “drive a pencil in your ear and smash it with me hand”, “I have never rung your number you stupid little imbecile” and “f*** licking your dirty crack whore arse”.

Cop shops at St Kilda, Collingwood, Dandenong, Fitzroy, Southbank, Geelong, Prahran, Rosebud, Springvale, Bayside, Caulfield, Chelsea, Cheltenham and Cranbourne were subjects of the attacks.

Poot also menaced thousands of innocent people between January and March 2019 by setting up a system that called mobile numbers and disconnected before the recipient could answer.

The system then sent a text to the number, pleading for urgent help and for the person to call.

When the victim did call the number back, they were met with the same prerecorded verbal abuse and threats Poot inflicted on the police.

Some callers were then connected to each other, causing them to become distressed and confused and to blame each other for the abuse.

The system made about 127,000 calls during the nine-week attack.

Poot used fake aliases to engage others via Gumtree and Airtasker to do his dirty leg work for him including getting a person to collect computer equipment from a DHL.

Poot under the alias “Jaspar Thurgood” placed an ad on Gumtree looking for someone to host a small computer he had configured.

A Ferntree Gully man responded to the ad and hosted the small computer – known as a Gigabyte Brix – for $300.

Scripts running on this computer were used to disrupt police phone lines, the court was told.

Police seized the computer and linked it back to Poot’s East Bendigo property via Wi-Fi.

Poot, who also pleaded guilty to unauthorised access with intent to commit serious offence, established multiple phishing sites targeting Post Pillbay customers.

Poot – using Australia Posts’ online payment system – collected the credit card info for 2500 customers.

The prolific hacker also obtained the personal information of multiple people on a consumer credit reporting agency database.

Poot, who also pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence and possession or control of a thing with intent to dishonestly obtain or deal in personal financial information, was nabbed at his Goddards Lane on June 14, 2019.

Police seized evidence including multiple devices.

Poot was also handed a three-year community correction order.

[e-mail]