Husband hires hackers to track wife

Banking heir Matthew Mellon spies on wife's email

25 April 2007 16:52 GMT / By Ryan Haynes

A husband is in court after hiring a team of spies to track his wife's movements and gain information on their divorce settlement.

Matthew Mellon an American bank heir used private detectives - "Hackers Are Us" to get information from emails of his estranged wife Tamara Mellon, head of Jimmy Choo shoes. The jury are hearing how Mr Mellon hired members from the Active Investigation Services to get information on his divorce he wasn't getting through the court process.

The investigation company carry out usual detective work and sideline activity including "hacking into people's computers and bugging people's telephones", which are both illegal in Britain.

The company used a "Trojan" computer virus allegedly created by American-based IT specialist Marc Caron. Sent in a form of an email, once opened the Trojan then recorded every keystroke that was made including such things as bank account numbers and passwords.

The case continues...